


Not by Blood

by BlossomingRosebud



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Black Markets, Childhood Trauma, Cold War, Coming of Age, Family, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Government Agencies, Human Experimentation, Normal Life Attempt, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Shiro is 1000 percent done with life, Space Dad Shiro (Voltron), Space Mom Allura (Voltron), Team Voltron Family, Terrorism, Trauma, elemental paladins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2018-12-15 18:41:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11811960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlossomingRosebud/pseuds/BlossomingRosebud
Summary: Their last mission should have been their simplest.  And then they found the kids in glass boxes.A complete Earth-based semi-modern AU featuring the Voltron crew as a large adoptive family with a tattered past...and a whole new deal of problems for the present.





	1. The Broken Whole

Takashi Shirogane had seen a lot over the years, but he could say without a doubt that this was new.  He knew war, he knew famine.  He knew treachery, murder, and assassination, whether their side was on the receiving or the dealing end of the blow.  In everything they did, they faced opposition.  Everywhere they went, there was someone who would be waiting, and they would face the threat in stride.  Why should this be any different?  Why would this place, so near to their end, hold anything new, anything that didn’t have to do with the usual weapons and intelligence battle?  But this was most certainly different.  This was worse.

Shiro had no idea what to do with this.

They came in big glassy boxes, locked and sealed with some sort of pinpad entry.  Strangled sobs echoed off of cold white walls in this lab-like prison held deep underneath the hot Arizona plains.  They were children.  A dozen in all, the age of toddlers, locked down here with absolutely no one else but their team in sight for reasons of which Shiro had not the slightest idea.  But that need for information didn’t hold a candle to the sheer indignation this battered special agent felt that _he_ would stoop this low.  Kidnapping children?  _Children_?  It was funny, so many times Shiro was convinced that he had lost the ability to feel anymore, that he had seen too much for that.  But then there came times like these.  And he would find himself feeling human in the face of inhumanity.

Agents started springing forward to let the kids out of their boxes, but the children wouldn’t let them.  Who were they?  Frail forms scooted to the back of their little units of confinement; they weren’t quick to trust.  And Shiro was left wondering…what did they _do_ to them?  Why?  How?  He used to be one of them; he wasn’t like this.  He was never like this.  Zarkon was an agent once, and so was Haggar.  They had been teammates…but not anymore.

“Shiro!”

A sudden barking of his name came like a well-deserved slap to Shiro’s dumb-struck face.  Only just now did he realize he had just been standing there staring at the scene this whole time, as if he were only watching horror from afar.  Not too far away, Allura glared back at him as she crouched at a lock, letting her teammate know clearly that he better come down and start helping.

Frankly, Shiro was not at all adverse to doing just that.  He just was just…confused, was all.  Somewhere on the other side of the room, a kid starts screaming.  It mixes in with the great collage of noise, and Shiro’s seemingly unshakeable nerves frazzle.  Out of the corner of his eye he notices that Ren had managed to coax out a little Hispanic boy, who now clung to his leg squealing and making other little noises.  Was that good or bad?  Shiro had not a clue; he never trained for this; he couldn’t read little children making noises.  He had been an only child.

Presently Shiro became aware of Allura ranting while working at deactivating a pried-open lockbox.  Shiro worked at one of his own; they weren’t too hard to break, really.  He was tempted to just faze through the lock and destroy it from the inside, but for the slight chance of that blowing up in his face and the kids…he didn’t.  Best play it safe.

“…can’t even tell you why.  Children!  He stole _children_ , Shiro!” Allura went on venting vehemently.  “What even were they to him?  Hostages?  Lab rats?  To _think_ he would stoop this low – no!  Haggar!  I’d be surprised if _she_ didn’t have something to do with this…”

 _POP!_ went her lock.  From the back of the box a tiny girl with wide eyes and a tangled mess of dark blonde hair stared back at them.  Shiro could hear Allura catching her breath, and she reached out with lower tones.  “It’s okay…we’re here to help you.”

The little girl just kept staring back, though her eyes did narrow.  At least she wasn’t a screamer like half the other kids in this place.  But Allura just stayed there with hands outstretched, obviously hesitant to just reach in and grab her.  She looked back at him with fury morphed into pain.  Though her eyes were set with defiance, this little girl was wan and frail.  So were most everyone else here.  She wore some bandages here and there; some of her skin was discolored…he noticed a burn near her neck.  Maybe it could have been worse, but…that didn’t make it any less bad.  Quickly Shiro turned his head away.  Scenes flooded his mind that he never even saw.  Testing…a team of passive white-coat scientists…blood-curling screams met by cold glares…chemicals that could sting your eyes from a yard away...no.  No, this can’t be right.  He didn’t know what happened, but he knew he hated it.  It only fueled the fight within him, but again, there was no opposition even to be met.  This room was all they found.

God, what had Zarkon turned into?

Shiro released a heavy sigh and finally found it in him to speak in reference to what was happening.  “He…he was probably testing on them.”  He didn’t want to believe it, but the theory had already been given its evidence.  Zarkon was testing on humans.  Small, defenseless, kids.  When the team had been instructed to search Zarkon’s abandoned base, they hadn’t found much…but coming to this level, they found several lab-like rooms, denoting some kind of research.  However, those rooms had been mostly stripped of their contents, so they still had no clues as to _what_ was being done.  But then they found this room…and apparently, these kids and their boxes were about the only important thing left behind.

 “They have to be okay…” Shiro muttered softly as he looked up again to take in the room, a place filled with an elite and highly trained team of special agents thrown into chaos by a dozen screaming children.  A second later his own lock popped open, but the boy inside made no move to come out.  He wouldn’t even look at them, just kept his head buried in between his legs.  Shiro didn’t even know what to say.  Self-consciously he angled his arm out of sight behind his back, the weaponized prosthetic one.  His real right arm was lost on the field a long time ago, but that was another story.

“We _should_ be more careful about this.”  Behind him came the sound of Larson growling darkly.  Shiro turned around to see his teammate glower with displeasure as he stood with arms crossed and inspected the scene seriously.  “We don’t know anything about this situation.  We should really report back to base before breaking them out; it could be dangerous.”

“No.”  Shiro’s tone was firm, decided, but he couldn’t help but feel only futile rage.  Rage at Zarkon; anger at the system that would even suggest they _wait_ as if this were a cold matter to be held.  “We’re _helping_ them, and…” And what?  And then what?  Could they fix it?  Could they undo the past?  If only they had broken into this base months ago!  _Then_ they could have actually helped!  But no, their orders were to hold out, wait for Zarkon and his forces to make the first move.  But obviously, they already had, and for all their expertise, they didn’t even know it.  They were useless, and now these kids were scarred for life.  How much did _they_ see?  How much would they remember of this place? 

Shiro stood with jaws set and fists clenched, ready to strike, ready to lash out at the perpetuator of this, but no, he wasn’t even there.  He was long gone, taken to the wind.  He would only laugh at Shiro if he saw him standing here, trying to rein in the beast that longed for some kind of justice he could never serve, nor did he even have the right.  For even he felt guilt over the situation.  Yes, they were under orders not to engage unless told so, but months ago, Shiro had no problem with that.  He was reluctant – yes, reluctant! – to fight his former teammate, even if he had gone rogue.  Surely, they would come around?  But no, his chance was gone now.  He would most certainly engage, one day.  Someday.  “Zarkon’s going to pay for this.”

Larson just shook his head.  “I have a bad feeling, Shiro.  Something’s wrong with them; Zarkon wouldn’t just be having them as pets.”  He paused, then added, “You know we didn’t get this far through empathy.”

No, but it sure helped keep them going.  Shiro knew what Larson was thinking, but he also knew that it had to be wrong.  “No, we’re nowhere.” Nowhere at all.  No more chances to do anything.  They all knew it.  This was already going to be the last mission they would ever have.

All the children had been freed by now.  Allura held the little blonde girl in her arms; how she got that far, Shiro didn’t even know.  All he knew now was that they had to get these kids back and into the hands of someone way more capable than he.  Because as much as he hated it, there was nothing left for him to do.  Yes, he supposed that for a team like theirs, a scene like this shouldn’t be phenomenal.  But still, it was.  It still was.  

“Fine,” Larson shrugged.  “But I can’t say the Garrison will be happy about this.”

No, they wouldn’t.  But then, when were they ever?

 

* * *

 

 

There was no doubt about it: if Allura got her hands on those two traitorous, murderous, child-harming kidnappers, she would make them wish they hadn’t been born.  She would be on them so fast.  It didn’t matter if Haggar _was_ her cousin, there was no way she—

“’Lurra, ‘Lurra!  Look!  Look at me!”

The proclamation was made by a very tiny Latino boy, who proceeded to raise up his hands and crash them back down to the floor and jump in what was probably meant to be some attempt at a handstand.  Obviously, it was supposed to be impressive.  So Allura had no choice but be impressed.

“Oh, Lance!  Good job!” Allura exclaimed in her best cooing little kids-voice that completely contrasted her murderous thoughts of a few seconds earlier.  But then, her very presence here would be considered quite unheard of, considering her job as it used to be.  While everyone else was milling about the base, she had increasingly taken it upon herself to sit by and watch the kids, the assortment of little displaced younglings, hardly older than toddlers, that they had all helped to rescue just three weeks earlier.  The Garrison thought it a sufficient idea to just place them all in temporary play pen-fence constructs with a couple of beat-up toys and some food every now and again, but it didn’t take long for all of them to find out that toddlers were hardly still or quiet creatures.  They needed someone to look after them; that was just the facts.  And these four needed someone more than anybody.

Over the past few weeks since their discovery, eight of the twelve kids had been returned to their rightful homes, with perhaps a lot more fanfare than anyone at the Garrison would have hoped.  This incident had quickly been made into national news, the shocking conclusion to the previously unheard-of string of kidnappings all across the nation finally coming to a close.  And needless to say, America was just as shocked as they were.  The Garrison tried to hold back as many as the details as possible, but of course, with the press, theories abounded.

But none of that really mattered as much; the problem was that after all the news and investigations, four of these children still had no lead, and the conclusion was made that they were most likely orphans.  Sadly, records were hard to procure for one so young.  They couldn’t even be sure of their names, much less which orphanage they slipped away from.  But these four left behind were already known to her as Lance, Keith, Hunk, and Pidge.  The information was only told to Allura by the former three; Pidge was too young to talk intelligibly, but she had attached herself to this beat-up stuffed pigeon that the Garrison procured from who-knows-where, and well…hence the name.  Perhaps she needed something better, more _name-like_ , but it stuck, and now even Shiro was calling her that too.

Allura looked down to find the ruffled dark blonde in question looking up at her right then, making no gesture as one normally would but bearing eyes staring with expectation.  Allura capitulated, and brought her little Pidge into her lap, who in turn persisted to start playing with the older woman’s long starch white hair.  Would her teammates laugh at her right now if they saw this?  Oh yes, they would.  They already did.  But she didn’t care a lick.  Yeah, they joked about how attached she managed to get to these kids that were hardly her own, as if she was their mother or something.  They said she had grown soft, but no, in that, they were quite wrong.  Caring didn’t make her weak.  In fact, it made her even stronger, adopting all the pure unbridled fury of motherhood ready to be unleashed onto the wretched low lives who would dare touch these innocent children.  Because now she knew them.  She knew how poor Hunk would run and hide whenever they tried to bring him to an examination table.  She knew how Keith, though the oldest, didn’t say a single word for over a week and would often just stare blankly into the distance.  She knew all about Lance’s violent coughing fits and sometimes sudden seizures.  And she would never forget how she first found Pidge – all skin and bones, sickly green splotches all over her skin, and eyes set in pain and defiance.

So yes, Allura _did_ care.  And she knew they should have done so much more; they should have raided Zarkon’s base way sooner.  But then, there were a lot of things they should have done.  And there were so many things it should have been their job to do all along.

It was quite shudderingly odd that there should be exactly a dozen children there, for there had exactly twelve of them, too, at the beginning.  They were all special agents, trained for combat and intelligence missions out on the field, all in service to their country.  Allura had been from a long line of military people; her entry into the field was actually quite natural.  Her father, Commander Alfor, had been a general in the United States Navy.  He served in both World War II and Korea, but lost his life shortly into the war at Vietnam.  Losing him as a teenager only made her choice all the more clear: she too would fight all the forces of evil and Communism, and when the great war turned cold, the secret yet active operations of the Garrison became the natural choice. 

Together, she and her team fought the war no one knew about, the power struggle behind the scenes between the Western world and the East…with every possible mix-up in between.  As an elite clandestine team, they were often in the heart of enemy territory, often in the business of either protecting important individuals or taking them out.  They were important, yes…however, it was a lot more complicated than that.  They didn’t do what they did for the past nine years because of skill alone.  It had a lot more to do with _what_ they now were.

“Doing okay, Allura?”

Allura turned behind her to see Shiro standing there as if he always was, arms crossed in a tense, yet relaxed position.  Or forced to be relaxed.  But it was okay – Allura understood, of course.  This was hard for all of them.  Their very presence at the base had grown increasingly awkward, increasingly alone.  They were staying on site until the kids were taken care of and this mission could be officially closed – otherwise, they would have all left much sooner.  But no, here they stayed.  All seven of the original twelve – they stayed and did what they needed to.  After all, it was mostly the higher ups who really didn’t want them to exist; the Garrison base would welcome them, for now.

“Oh, I’m just fine!” Allura responded with a smile and forced enthusiasm, ignoring the thoughts of worry creeping up just now.  What _would_ they do once they left?  Where would they go?  All Allura ever wanted to do was to serve, to be military, just like her father.  It was all she ever knew.  But now, she wasn’t sure what they’d even _let_ her do.  And what about Shiro?  Did he have any idea, either?

She would have asked, but it seemed a much kinder thing to change the unspoken subject.  “The kids are really doing quite well,” she beamed at the four toddlers in their fence down below, only for her face to fall as she witnessed Lance and Keith start wrestling over a plush bunny and the former start crying as the slighter older boy won him out.  “Keith!  Lance!” she barked loudly as she jumped the fence and rushed to their side, finger out in instructional displeasure.  “Remember what we talked about _sharing_?  Here, Lance, you can have a different toy,” she looked around for the nearest thing she could find to give him, which happened to be a plastic lion missing one of its back legs.  But she’ll take it.  And gratefully, little Lance seemed to like it, too. 

“Yeah!  RAWRR!” he squealed enthusiastically and proceeded to play on his own. 

Allura turned to go back to her seat, crisis averted, when she noticed Shiro’s bemused smile.  “What’s so _funny_?” she placed her hands on her hips with an encroaching sense of indignation.

“You make a good mother,” Shiro’s slight smile was natural and pointed, and Allura had no choice but to go with it.  Shiro wasn’t like everyone else in this, anyhow.  He stuck by her, weird attachment to children and all.  But that was because they were friends already, turning out closer to each other than to the rest of team.  What Allura didn’t tell him was that her ‘mother-hen’ role of the past three weeks was the only thing that kept her sane.  It distracted her, gave her something to dwell on besides her rage and her abandonment.  It felt right to nurture. 

Shiro slipped back into his usual serious expression as he looked back at the children, studying them.  “Actually, it’s probably a good sign to see them act assertively.  They’re not as afraid,” he noted solemnly, prompting Allura to nod slowly in agreement.   Truth be told, he was right.  It was good to see them lively (although she was sure they wouldn’t be so prone to fight if only the Garrison gave them _space_ ).  It was…normal.  And it accented all the more the reason why these were real, breathing children who needed a home other than the Garrison floor.

And evidently, she wasn’t the only one who thought so.  As if on cue, arguing voices from the next room over rose in decibel count, and both Allura and Shiro found it in their immediate instinct to look over and see what was going on.  And it wasn’t hard to figure out exactly what the object of discussion was.  It was what it always was.

“I am a _representative_ of the United States _government_!  The children are my charge; _I_ decide what to do with them!” A young woman ranted angrily, also comically as she lifted glasses-shielded eyes to stare into Commander Iverson’s.  Iverson, the man in charge of this base, had to be at least two heads taller than she was.  And just like she apparently was, he was a force to be reckoned with when angry.  Or anytime, for that matter.

“This matter is _not_ up for discussion, Wesley!” Iverson boomed back at the terse social worker.  She had been here for a while now, what with the amazing discovery being public and all, and it was evident she was quite incensed by the relative slow pace of the operation. 

“No!  Listen here!  I am sick and _tired_ of waiting around!  These children are unregistered orphans; it is my job to bring them into government care.  I understand that the Garrison likes to do its _own_ thing, but we must do ours.  So stop holding on to them, and _let me have them_.”  The woman put her foot down strongly, and the entire being of the room—now filled a steadily gathering crowd of the curious—tensed immediately.  She wasn’t the only one who said that.  There were many – the news media in particular – that would claim that out of all the government agencies out there, the Garrison overstepped their bounds the most.  But despite all that happened, they all knew that they had to do what they had to do.  At least, Allura held on to that; she made herself believe.  In spite of it all, they still had to be somehow _right_.

But Allura could see the woman’s point.  This was no place for a kid.  But even though everyone else had already been returned to their families, the Garrison still had its reasons for keeping them.  They needed to watch them, study them.  Giving the obvious test-tube nature of their existence, they were a little doubtful of their… _normality_.  And it had nothing to do with their psychological well-being.

“We need to keep the children and _watch_ them.  We don’t know what may have happened back there, and we’re not waiting until they’re off in the outside world to find out!  The Garrison keeps them; end of story!”

“And what, for how long?  Months?  Years?  I _will_ report you to childcare services.  People will _know_.”

Oh, the threat of publicity.  The one thing they didn’t need the most.  Bad, yes, but what were they to do?  She understood – they were afraid.  Afraid they might morph; they might be damaged, tainted, mutant.  Mutant…like _them_.  Like the fateful team of twelve that the higher forces ever so badly wanted to get rid of.  _They_ were it.  _They_ were the objects.  It was the reason why they were set apart.  It was the reason for those obvious conspicuous symptoms, like Allura’s hair getting bleached completely white.  That wasn’t natural – it was a result of the accident.  The accident that made them…different, that wounded and enhanced.  The accident that in actuality wasn’t an accident at all.  They set them up…the Garrison did.  But they didn’t know that then.  They thought they were only helping.  But knowing the truth divided them; it ruined the team forever.  It was why, Allura understood, some things were better kept secret.  And after Zarkon and Haggar defected, it became the last straw; the team was disbanded.  They were cast out and forbidden, ordered to hide anything different about them, anything like Allura’s command over quintessence, or Shiro’s ability to phase through walls.  All of that was cursed and a thing of the past.  And perhaps, Allura would do best to forget it.

The Garrison was familiar with the unnormal.  And thus, they knew the possibilities.  They knew just how messed up any of these kids could be.  And if they had their way, they would stay in control, even if it meant treating the children that remained just like the test subjects that would have once been.  Like something less than human...just like their very own strike team of the altered.

They needed a home.  Allura knew that was absolutely the case.  And they needed to be with someone who understood them, who knew what it was like to be broken.  And with that, she had made her decision.  Contrary to what some might later believe, this wasn’t premeditated.  It wasn’t exactly on the radar.  But it was what felt right at this time right now.

“I’ll take them.”

Allura’s voice rang out decisively from the sidelines, wedging into the conversation where she had not necessarily been invited.  Both Ms. Wesley and Iverson stared at her like she had gone utterly mad.  Wesley was the first to sound the echo.  “You?”

Allura nodded shortly.  “Yes.  With your permission, Commander, I would like to take them into my own home, with me and my uncle.  We can watch them as you wish, and report back if anything unusual happens.”  And there it was.  The proposition that she hoped, perhaps, would satisfy both parties present.  Iverson seemed interested; Wesley, however, had questions.

“Well, have you ever had children before?”

“No ma’am, I haven’t.”

“Are you married?”

“No, I’m not.”

Wesley shook her head in disdain.  “Well…Ms. Altea, is it?  I’m afraid that your situation is not exactly what we would call most suitable.  We are talking about _four_ individuals, not one.  And I’m sorry to say this, but how can we be sure the living situation is proper?  I must assume your uncle is elderly, and you, Ms. Altea, are a _soldier_ , not a homemaker.  You’d be overwhelmed, I’m sorry.  I wouldn’t advise it.  I would much rather take the children to a proper foster home.”

Well, Allura must admit, those were a lot more objections than she expected right then.  And frankly, it was infuriating.  Here she was, offering an actual home, and she says what?  It’s _unsuitable_?  Just like that?  She didn’t even take the time to properly assess the situation!  All she knew was that she was single, and a special agent.  And of course this woman would have no knowledge of her _other_ qualities.  So how dare she!?  Her proposition was perfectly logical!  Difficult, yes, but who said she _couldn’t_?  Oh, se most certainly could!  She might as well tell her…

“I could take care of them too, if that helps.”

Allura’s breath caught fast in her throat, and she spun around to see Shiro in the same expression he always had, but looking straight at the two of them with his own proposition.  So…what was he saying?  He would help?

“You would do this too?” Wesley peered at him now from right above the rim of her glasses, an air of incredulity to her voice.  Chances were, this was hardly the proper syntax for an adoption as she knew it, admittedly.

Shiro nodded with surety.  “If Ms. Altea is okay with it, I can live somewhere nearby, help take care of the kids.  That is, since there’s four.”

Commander Iverson cocked back his head in a brief moment of thought, and then stared back down with commanding cocked eyebrow at his soon to be former underlings.  “You’ll report to back to the Garrison if any problems arise?”

“Yes, sir.” Both of them consented in simultaneous manner.

The commander looked satisfied.  “Then I say this is an acceptable plan.  Keeps the base free from any distractions.  You will both be tasked with the children,” he declared with finality.

Allura glanced back at Shiro in a flash of gratitude, and his eyes caught hers with a slight, friendly smile.  Allura didn’t plan for this, but she was glad.  Glad that she could help the kids; glad that he was helping her.  They hadn’t known each other outside the team, it is true, but she trusted him.  He was a good friend; they’ll make this work.  They’ll find a way; it’ll be…an adventure.  A normal one.  A civilian one, but that was okay.  If she was going to be forced to be a civilian, she might as well be a _good_ one.

Wesley made a loud sound with her throat, attracting eyes back to her as she glared at the situation.  “I’ll have you know, this is entirely irregular.  However…” she sighed heavily, “…this is hardly a regular situation.  Yes, fine, you can both be guardians for the kids.  But I’ll have you know, you’re going to be registered as _temporary_ placement.  Once we have found a better agreement, Child Services will aim for a more proper, permanent home.  This won’t last forever.”

“Yes, I understand.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, hope you liked that bit! So, since I didn't have a chance to really be specific with my setting in the story, here it is: The current year is 1989. Next chapter will go forward to 12 years later in 2001, in which time the main events of the story will take place (hence the 'semi-modern' description in the summary), with, of course, a good dose of flashbacks to the before and in between. You see, I'm placing this 'team' thing as a matter of the Cold War era in history, with everyone here on the American side of things. They fought actively in a totally non-public and possibly morally questionable sort of way (fun for some good character reflection later), but now all that's over. In 1989, the Berlin Wall falls, hence a bit of background for why the government might think that their problems were over, and they didn't need a volatile team of superpowered humans on their hands. And yes, I know, I was totally unspecific as to _what_ exactly happened, but I promise, there is a plan, and I'll reveal all the backstory stuff later! Basically, the idea is that Shiro and Allura are kind of mutants in this world (as are Zarkon and Haggar for that matter), but they weren't born that way. More on that later.
> 
> So yeah, I am using real Earth history for the AU as a backdrop, although things will, of course, vary. I am taking a lot of inspiration off of this general genre. Which brings me to the other thing - child experimentation fun! So yeah, classic trope, but in this world, the other four paladins are starting off as children experimented and tested upon courtesy of Zarkon (Haggar, really), and yes, they will be not normal. Take a few guesses from the tags for that. Again, reasons will come out later. But to specify, right now, Pidge is three, Lance and Hunk are four, and Keith is five, kind of keeping to the original age differentiation in the show, but squeezing them together a bit. And, apologies if I'm getting the child psychology-language dynamics off in reference to their ages, it's been a little while since I've really been with kids. I found myself digging into all my old childhood home videos just to match age to speech pattern. But yeah, so, they're not going to remember what happened very well. Keith, obviously, will remember the most. But it's mostly going to be a deep-set hazy sort of trauma, the kind that comes out more in nightmares and fear triggered by certain sights, smells, and sounds. 
> 
> And one last thing: names. As you can see, I'm keeping with all of the original names in the show for simplicity's sake, even the ones that sound a lot more alien than human. But just to clarify, everyone is a human here. And yes, I know, Haggar is Honerva now. Honestly, I wrote and planned most of this before season 3; however, I decided to keep her as Haggar here at this point in time. She will be Honerva originally, but I'll be weaving that name change into an earlier part of her backstory, a psychological turning point that occurs some time prior to her defection. And also, as much as I loved the two of them together, Zarkon and Haggar/Honerva aren't married in this universe. It just didn't fit with what I had for them. But their power dynamic will be fun all the same...


	2. Life is Fine, but There's a Crater in the Backyard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Years have gone by, and with it, Shiro, Allura, and the rescued kids have found themselves becoming a family. But even a life in peace has its challenges...especially when it's forbidden to be a normal one.

_Twelve years later…_

 

Allura eased slowly out of bed that morning, drowsily rubbing the sleep from her eyes.  Sunlight filtered in through the window, begging to beckon contented gazes to the glory of the outside world, into the wide expanse of hills, pasture, and forest, boasting all the charm of the Oregon countryside.  Allura took one step towards that window, and then she heard it – a simmering crackle and pop.  It started out low, and then commanded the air waves with its violent crescendo.  And then came the boom.

As always, the window reacted with violent shudder as the ground gave a loud, angry jolt.  Allura threw her head back in exhausted frustration – it was too early in the morning for this.  That distinct scent of a smoldering mess – was that sulfur? – hit her nose in angry waves, and just like that, the last remnants of blessed sleep dissolved from her eyes like pepper flakes.  She took a few more hurried steps towards the window, and then looked down from her second-story perch.  A crater.  It was a smoldering, smoking massive dent of a crater in the backyard, and just as expected, there were the kids, right beside it.

Allura quickened her pace to throw something on besides the nightgown.  It only took about two minutes to be out there in wild white hair and indignation.  “What—!?”

“I didn’t do it this time, I swear!” Keith threw up his arms in defense of innocence as Allura approached them, but just past him, the real perpetuator stood quite obvious. Her face, haloed by a plethora of singed dark blonde locks, hid behind a rapidly scribbling pen and notebook, and her voice betrayed the distinct tone of _science_.

“Nitric oxide and magnesium sulfate…just the right catalyst to bring the test matter into an exothermic reaction at room temperature!  Matt, make a note of that!” Pidge lifted her face from her scribbles to call out to her accomplice standing by, but got caught short by the sight of Allura and her complete lack of amusement.  “Well, I did it _outside_ this time!” Pidge threw out her excuse at the ready, already knowing Allura’s protest was coming fast.

“Pidge, you are absolutely _too_ close to the house!  And right next to the chicken coop, no less!” she gestured pointedly to the mess of chicken wire fencing standing a few yards away, where the loud squawking emanating from within served to prove her point.

Pidge muttered something incoherent about chickens and demon balls of feathers, but Allura already knew exactly where she was going.  “Pidge, no!  You are _not_ allowed to hurt the chickens on purpose!”

“But we _eat_ them!  And their fetuses!  So what if I don’t like them?” she retorted back abruptly.  Because yes, they have had this conversation before.  Plenty of times.

“Everyone okay?”

Heads swiveled quickly to the voice belonging to the one who obviously spent even less effort than Allura getting ready to come outside this morning.  Shiro stood there in a kimono-like robe and cup of coffee, sleep still evident on his face as he inspected the roughly 8-foot crater outside their back porch. 

“Hey, the oxygen input was greater than I expected!  The reaction still took too long.  So technically, it’s Keith’s fault.”

“What!?” Keith’s hands now flayed up in indignation.  “How is this _my_ fault!?”

“If you helped like I _asked_ , we could have stimulated the reaction much sooner.  Less oxygen, less explosion.”

“What?  Now you expect me to—?”

“Pidge!” Allura’s shoulders grew terse as she readied her retort, but her youngest was quick to beat her to the punch.

“Yeah, yeah, I know: ‘bring your experiments to the _back_ of the property.’  I’m sorry; it’s too early to walk, okay?” she shrugged nonchalantly.

“But not too early to set up an entire experiment?” Allura motioned to the wide assortment of sample, vials, and…well…whatever these things were.  But Pidge was already moving to pick them up and toss them into the crate from which they came (she was never the _gentlest_ of scientists).

“Yep, don’t worry!  Got it!” She reassured as she gathered her tools of the trade, now receiving help from, of course, none other than the plants themselves.  Weeds sprouted spontaneously around her feet, wove around objects, and promptly moved to drop them in the crate.  And Matt Holt just stood there and waved casually back to them.

“Morning, Ms. Altea, Mr. Shirogane!”

Now, Allura knew very well that Pidge’s friend of seven years would be far from innocent in this case, but courtesy still prompted her to chirp “Good morning!” back.  But soon enough, the pair took off fast, hopefully moving their little ‘research’ elsewhere.  And when Allura turned back to the scene, Keith had already made himself scarce.

“Well,” Allura released a held breath like a sigh once it came to be that she and Shiro were alone together.   “Never a dull moment, right?”

Shiro shrugged and took another sip of coffee.  “I can fix it.”

“No, you won’t,” Allura wagged her finger rebukingly at her friend.  “ _Pidge_ should fix it,” she sighed once more, gazing around at the scene.  “I admire her enthusiasm, but could she be a little less destructive?”

Shiro just smiled and shook his head.  Because yes, they both knew the answer was ‘no’.  And perhaps, it was pointless, anyways.  Subconsciously, Allura found herself turning around to gaze at the perfectionist’s horror story that was the back wall of their house.  Scorch marks lined the bricks.  Certain spots were still dripping wet and moldy, bespeaking of permanent water damage.  And in other spots, chunks of the wall were missing altogether.  Look down and you would plenty of places were the ground was broken and turned up, making most spots places where grass now refused to grow.  A single tree standing to the side was now sitting at an angle where the ground beneath had tilted up to a wedge shape, leaving roots and dirt exposed to the air.  And yet, somehow, that tree was still living, so much so that by some freak of nature it had stretched towards the back wall and was now growing _inside_ the brick.

It was big; it was messy.  They could never bring other people here ever, not without cleaning and covering up the whole place first, which they had done – plenty of times.  That is, unless they were someone like Matt, enough a friend of family to stick around and to be allowed to _know_ things.  Actually, he was the only one outside the household to know besides Shay, Hunk’s long-time girlfriend of about three years.  Even Shiro’s mom didn’t know.

So yes, it was crazy.  However, it was _home_.  This place they had for themselves; it would always be home to them.  And this was exactly why they had moved out in the country in the first place – so that they could all be free to be themselves, away from neighbors’ prying eyes.  And, of course, they needed a bigger house anyways, so everyone could have their own space and Shiro could graduate from being semi-permanent resident of the guest room.  That is, now they both had their own rooms.  Because deep down, when it came to these four, Allura knew she needed all the help she could get.  And as much as Allura would love to stay in control and keep a tight ship over what she had been given, even she knew that was impossible.  But at least they were growing; they were maturing. 

Shiro and Allura gave each other a knowing look, probably each reminiscing as much as the other.  Their four wards may be teenagers in high school now, but of course it would seem like yesterday they were all still half-sized wrecking balls playing, fighting, and laughing all over the house and lawn.  It also brought to mind _that_ day, the first day things really turned upside down.  It was the day little seven-year-old Lance excitedly called ‘Iro’ and ‘Lura’ down to the kitchen to watch as he lifted water telepathically from a cup and dropped it splattering all over the floor, all the while laughing and giggling as if it was the coolest thing in the world and not a problem at all.  Allura almost screamed, but she didn’t.  She thinks she remembers it more as a yelp.  But she definitely remembers Shiro dropping his coffee cup and it shattering all over the floor, right there with all of their fears realized.  That was the day the future became clear – they had to move.  Years ago, something major happened, and the weeks that followed made it known Lance was not the only one.  Also, years ago, they knew they had made a promise to the Garrison – a promise to tell them if anything out of the ordinary, anything abnormal happened.  That day, they lied.

Allura broke through her thoughts of the past and turned silently back towards the house, Shiro following close after.  It was already 8 AM at this point, and she needed to get ready to go into the station in about half an hour.  Shiro would be leaving soon, as well, and the kids would have a whole Saturday to spend alone.  Sometimes, that idea alone would be terrifying, but she knew that whatever happened, they would still look out for each other.  Most of the time.  Because no matter how apart or how crazy they were, they were family.

 

* * *

 

 

“Lance, _no_.”

“Come on!  It’ll be _fun_!”

“Oh no, no way.  Last time you said that, we ended up in a ditch with spaghetti, which, among other things, was a tragic waste of food.  So whatever you’re doing, I’m not doing it.”

Hunk waved his stirring spoon pointedly at his adopted brother’s face in a decisive effort to act unmovable and keep from giving in to his crazy plans.  Which, admittedly, he was in the habit of doing.  A _lot_.  Hunk was quite aware that his childhood was just about entirely made up of a long of string of mishaps which involved him getting into trouble on his siblings’ account.  Literally, all the time.  Just about every plan, escapade, or stunt they could get into was destined to go wrong.  And yet, somehow, he kept getting dragged along.  (Okay, maybe he had a _few_ bad ideas to call his own, but still…)  This time, he wasn’t doing it.  He was staying here, and he was cooking breakfast like a _responsible_ child because that’s what he _liked_ to do.  And if he didn’t, that would mean he would have to eat slop, which he also didn’t like to do.  At least Uncle Coran wasn’t around to make that “food goo” of his today.

But somehow, despite all his best whisk-pointing, Lance appeared undeterred.  He smiled that same smile of mischief he always had when he was scheming determinedly.  “Look, just don’t think of it as a stunt.  Think of it as an _experiment_.  You like that physics stuff, right – ooh, are those pancakes?”

Hunk subconsciously inched the searing pan of sizzling batter closer to himself.  “Only if you _don’t_.”

“Aw, you’re no fun…”

Presently, Keith entered through the kitchen door, and apparently, he noticed Hunk’s glaring and Lance’s look of pleading, because his own face instantly morphed from distraction to fear. He was about to leave, too, but was, of course, interrupted. 

“Keith!” Lance beckoned his older brother with hope renewed.  “Me and Hunk were just about to strap model rockets to the wagon and jump the creek at Pepper Butter Hill.  You in?”

Keith stared back at him blankly, expression something akin to pure disbelief and confusion.  “What?  Are you serious?”

Lance lifted his shoulders in what might have been a shrug were it not for the self-confident smirk that came with it.  “I think it could work!”

“But it’s…it won’t!” Keith gestured dramatically, evidently at a severe lack of words for the reaction meant to be expressed. 

“Fine, we’ll fly Red over instead.”

“You’ll WHAT!?”

“Nah man, I’m kidding; I’m pretty sure you cat would just gouge my eye out anyways.  But come on, we’ve done this kind of thing a million times before!”

“Yes, when we were _ten_.  Now, it’s just dumb.”

 “I’m _bored_ , okay!” Lance threw up his hands in exasperation and some semblance of surrender.  “It’s Saturday, and there’s nothing to do!  _You_ got any better ideas?”

“We don’t need to do _anything_ ,” Keith drew his hands to his temples with a heartfelt groan.  “Why do you have to always be making ideas?”

“Hey, guys!” Hunk spoke up quickly and just about as instantly regretted his decision when all eyes fell on him in response.  He really didn’t have any clue what to do, but some form of brotherly loyalty prompted him to intervene before the two of them started fighting… _again_.  But it wasn’t like there was much he could do about it.  Lance and Keith – they had always been going at it, ever since they were little.  They were like…well… _fire and water_.  Of course, they weren’t nearly as bad as they used to be.  Only today, they were both on edge already.  Nothing serious, but, well…Hunk could feel it.  Like the earth beneath him, he just kind of _knew_.  Lance was feeling restless, which was kind of normal for him, but maybe now it was worse than usual.  And Keith – he had been rather moody for a few weeks.  Which was also normal for him…but worse.  Yeah, it was just worse.  And no, Hunk really didn’t have much of a clue what exactly was bothering him, but he knew there was something. 

But one thing that he did know, he wasn’t letting everyone make themselves miserable for no reason at all.  On first impulse, he pulled forth the plate graced with his first couple of batches and offered them as peacemakers.  “You want any pancakes?”

Keith made no reaction other than the slight calming of his breath, but Lance was quick to take Hunk up on it.  “Heck yeah, I do!” He slid the first two on his plate with that carefree grin again.  After a few bites, he continued.  “Hey, here’s a new idea.  What if we all go off to the bowling alley?  You know, just relax, get some pizza, pick up girls…”

“Hey!”

“Not you, Hunk!  For me and Keith!  You know, the single guys…”

“I’m not looking for a date, Lance,” Keith droned bluntly.

“Fine, just me, then.  But come on, doesn’t it sound fun?”

But Keith’s expression was still just as unamused and, well, moody.  “Look, Lance, I’m busy.  I have work to do.  I can’t just ‘go off’ anywhere, okay?”

And at this point, even Hunk had to reluctantly agree.  “Yeah…I kind of got work, too.  My Chemistry test is next week, and I got some stuff for Robotics…”

“Whoa, I thought that ended already?  It’s almost summer, man!”

“Yeah, but we need to fix some things before the pre-competition _next_ fall.  We play first with the old robot, and then next spring we make the new robot…” Hunk trailed off as he watched Lance’s face subtly fall, a flash of guilt suddenly taking hold.  For a moment, he thought that, well, maybe Lance _did_ feel a little left out.  He had something, Pidge had something, Keith had something…and, well, he didn’t know about Lance.  At any rate, it had to suck that the school cut swim team this year.  And then when he didn’t make tryouts for soccer _or_ track…

Yeah, it was no wonder he was restless.  And while Hunk didn’t want to just be dragged around anymore…he could at least take the time now to start on his own stuff later.  And really, it wasn’t too hard.  He already knew a great way to be with the family that they would _all_ like.  “Hey, I have an idea…”

 

* * *

 

 

_A few hours later…_

“WHAT!? No way!”

“Yep.”

“But I air parried you!”

“You missed.”

“Darn you, Keith!!!” Lance threw his hands up high and briefly considered letting the game controller drop cord and all if it would not possibly mean breaking it…again.  Although, in his defense, Keith broke the last one, and Pidge the time before that.  But seriously, there was no way.  No way did Keith beat him for the _fifth_ time in a row.

“Okay, next time, we’re switching.  You play Ken, and _I’ll_ play Ryu.  That guy must be lucky or something.”

 “Yeah, sure,” Keith shrugged nonchalantly, as if already smug to the idea that he would probably _still_ win.  But whatever, it wasn’t like he had no chance at all.  He could totally beat him, just not _all_ the time.

“Okay, how’s this?  You and me for the next round; winner plays Keith.”

“Oh, you’re _on_!”

At this, Lance plopped back down from his standing position and onto the sofa once again, and Hunk came in beside him, in for yet another round of the great and awesome-est _Street Fighter III_.  Lance went for Yun this time, and Hunk had Dudley as usual, and they were off, kicking and punching and mashing buttons to high heaven.  This, Lance thought, was the life.  Despite the _occasional_ losing on his part, this had to be one of his favorite games, and chilling at home playing video games with his brothers was always a good time, anyways.  Around here, he could play it cool and kind of just be himself.  And it sure beat being at school any day.

“Hey, Street Fighter?  I wanna play!”

From behind him, Lance could sense Pidge walk in and perk up at the TV screen, following by a heavy _thud_ on the table that probably involved a box full of stuff probably related to some experiment or something, but he sure wasn’t turning around to see because _kung fu_ was at stake, here!

“Hey, Pidge!  You can play Keith next.  Winner on winner…oh yeah!”

“Ack!” Lance let out a high-pitched as he slunk back into the sofa that was, indeed, his only friend.  He lost _again_ , and this time to Hunk!  They were pretty close, yeah, but that one last kill shot did him in.  And it sure didn’t help his cause now that Pidge was in the game.  She was just as bad as Keith was.  The two of them were pretty much vying for the top out of all of them most of the time…unless Allura was playing. 

Allura was scary when she was playing.

“Heh, nice one!” Pidge slapped Hunk heartily on the back in kudos for the victory while simultaneously snatching his controller with her other hand.  “Alright Keith, prepare to be _pulverized_.”

Hunk laughed a little as stood up to make way for the next two challengers (there was really only room for two on the couch…when you were playing, anyways).  “So hey, Pidge, what were you working on earlier?”

“Testing the properties of a sample,” she replied casually as she kicked off her shoes and drew her feet up cross-legged on the couch.  “It was the extract from a kudzu vine I was working on.  Trying to see how well its traits match my blood sample.”

“Whoa, hold up, your _blood_ sample?” Okay, sometimes, Lance swore that Pidge’s projects were just plain crazy _weird_.  Her blood?  What the heck was she doing with her _blood_?  That sounded…gross.  Yeah, yeah, he knew, it was all nerd speak he didn’t understand and whatever, but Hunk was science-y too.  Only, he seemed a lot more like the _normal_ kind.  The kind that did math and built engines and stuff.  Though he guessed that was different?  Oh well, whatever, at least he never took random DNA samples that were _totally without permission, Pidge_.

Pidge smirked, as if pleased by the very horror her mad science must instill on her unsuspecting siblings.  “I was testing it for _quintessence_ , Lance.”

Oh yeah, of course.  That thing.  That weird mumbo-jumbo that really made little to no sense at all but apparently was the big explain-all special thing behind their powers.  Hence the ‘working on kudzu’ bit.  What she really meant was that she took a little plant from somewhere and grew it out to kingdom come.  Yeah, he heard the explanation before.  Apparently, quintessence was supposed to be the blob-like force inside of them, that somehow or another, got awakened and made them all superpowered and stuff.  It was the same for Shiro and Allura.  He knew that way back when, they got to be _real_ superheroes, which, heck, was pretty cool.  It was cool for them, too, despite that he knew it would have had something to do with Zarkon and his lab-testing things when they were little.  But that was okay, because it was the past.  It’s not like he was _still_ traumatized or anything – no way!  They had what they had, and out here, on the farm and far, far away from people, they could do whatever they wanted with it.

Of course, sure, they didn’t use it as much as they used to.  Sometimes Lance wanted to, whenever he got that innate urge to let that rush of water flow through his fingers like only he could, but now that they were older, they all tended to be a little more on the reserved side.  Because they all just had to be aware of risks and whatever, and, well, the government really sucked.  So long gone were the days when they would all go on for all-out fights and extreme games in the yard that lasted hours, or he would do stuff like, say, flood Keith’s room to the ceiling.

Man, those were good days.

Pidge continued on with the science-happy rambling as she and Keith started their game.  “I think I’m getting close.  Because quintessence is, by nature, metaphysical, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly.  But you can get closer by finding common traits.  And the evidence supports my theory that the substances we control are charged – yeah, take that! – by quintessence.  A unique…quintessence…energy signature…”

Pidge quit talking at just about the time ‘Mokoto wins!’ got plastered across the screen – _her_ character of choice.  Looks like its Hunk vs. Pidge for tournament champion.

“So, any idea what you want to play next?” Hunk offered as he redeemed his controller once more.

Well, Lance _kind_ of wanted to win a fight first, but hey, he was cool with something new.  “I don’t know, what about racing?  _Midtown Madness_ , anyone?” Yeah, _that_ was something he could do.  “If you’re up for it.  As it just so happens, I am an _excellent_ driver.”

“Says the guy who flunked his driver’s test _twice_ ,” Pidge retorted with that slight hiccup of amused laughter, as if this was _funny_.

“I’ll have you know, I can too drive!  It’s not my fault those cones were too close together!  And the second time, I swear that lady wasn’t even paying attention.  She was all grumpy and _old_ and…”

“You still failed.”

“And I’ll remind you that I _beat_ you last time we played, so ha!”

Pidge just shrugged as if it really, really didn’t matter to her one way or another.  Which was annoying, by the way.  What was also annoying was how well she could multitask the playing and talking thing.  He really needed to remember this next time she claimed that whatever he was doing was distracting her from whatever she was doing.

Soon, the fight was over, and once again, Pidge got herself declared champion.  Everyone seemed pretty content and ready to go to the next thing, but Lance decided he wanted just one more, _one_ last go before they quit.  “Wait a second, one last fight before we put it up.  I want a rematch,” he announced with a smile and a pointed glance towards Keith’s way.

“Sure,” he agreed, and they were off.  Although he was offered otherwise, Lance went ahead and did Yun again; it was more his style.  And as his button-mashing fingers flew into motion, his stance became decided.  This was good.  Right here, right now, everything was alright, and he would enjoy the moment while he had it.  So what if he had no clue what to do with anything?  Or if he kept failing his driver’s test…or everything else?  He would get there.  He would get there eventually.  _And_ look great while doing it.  But no, at least right now, he had these guys.

That’s what counted.

“WHHOOOO YES!!!  YES!  FINALLY!”

“Sheesh, Lance, easy on the eardrums.”

“I GOT YOU!”

There it was.  It shone so nice and happy on TV screen, and no one could deny it.  Yun was the winner; Lance’s pride was gloriously restored.

“So how many times did Keith beat you this time?” Pidge droned with a smirk, but Lance didn’t even care.

“Five!  But who cares, I won the last round of the session!  That’s got to be good luck or something.  Okay, put in the next game.  Everyone still in?”

Keith gave a slight smile before sinking back casually into the worn old couch.  “You bet.”

 

* * *

 

 

The sign mocked him.

The ornate title hung there proud, declaring the building surrounding it to be its own.  You couldn’t avoid it.  A few steps into the front door, and there it was, the wings and the star, the letters strung out.  Every eye would be drawn to its rich blue and silver display, and everyone would know just how grand it was.  But of course, you weren’t obligated a second glance.  You didn’t have to stay there, but still, Keith did.  He stayed there and he stared.

It was a stupid idea, really.  Keith knew that.  But somehow, it didn’t stop him from coming here, it didn’t stop him from _wanting_ this.  The base was so nearby; he came here all the time.  And since last year getting his license and newfound rights to the sedan when not in use, he came here even more.  The simple reason was that it was his way to relax.  It was one of those rare, precious things he got to do all alone, where he could just come and press himself for hours on end, away from life and from people.  It would be just him, the screen, and the controls, and he would _fly_.  The flight simulator coming courtesy of the Voltage United States Air Force Museum was an old one, kept in the basement away from active use by the _real_ pilot trainees.  But because Shiro worked here, he got something of a pass.  He got the chance to come here year-round, and the opportunity was used often.  He would walk down to that corner in the basement, fly the simulator that had grown so familiar he could practically think it his, and fantasize.

He really, _really_ had to stop coming here.

He knew it wouldn’t work.  There were so many ways it couldn’t work.  But six years ago he got himself enamored and the idea stuck on like a leach.  He wanted to be a pilot.  And if that wasn’t bad enough, the idea that captivated him the most out of anything was the desire to be a _fighter_ pilot.  And that meant the United States Air Force, the entity declaring its presence to him right this moment in blue and silver.  In other words, that meant the government, that looming force of being that for all means of logic he should absolutely hate.  He _should_ run from them.  He should stay far, far away from their all-too-encompassing sight.  Who and what he was told him that the best choice of lifestyle would be to crawl in a ditch and stay there.  Never come out in the open.  Never give them the opportunity to see you.  To look at you.  Hide in the shadows.

Yeah, the logical thing.  Sometimes he wondered why Shiro and Allura chose to even stay close to a ‘government’ entity of any sort after what happened to them.  But government they did.  Some time after moving here to middle-of-nowhere Voltage, Oregon, they both ended up in some arm of the law.  Allura joined the police force – and eventually became the sheriff – and Shiro got charged with training young air force cadets at this very base.  But he thought about this, and now he guessed it had something to do with the fact that it was now in their blood.  Once many years ago they were special agents fighting for their country, and now, in a lesser way, they still are.  If it weren’t for the fact that neither of them were his biological parents and even twelve years ago never got granted a title of ‘mom’ or ‘dad’, Keith would cite this as his reasoning, too.  It was in his blood.  He wanted to do something with purpose, and for whatever reason, whenever the time came, he wanted to be able to _fight_.  Even if it meant fighting for the same people who kicked Shiro and Allura and all their team to the side with nothing to go on.  The same ones who might get in a war that’s pointless if politics said so.  And the same ones he is sure would slice open not only himself but also Lance, Pidge, and Hunk in turn if they ever found out that were, after it all, a freak experiment gone right by a Class A enemy of the state.  Or, they might quarantine them for life.  If they were lucky.

And in a way, they were right.  The question wasn’t even if Keith could ever dare to get close enough to be in inspection of the USAF and be a fighter pilot.  The question was if – being what he was – he could even be a _pilot_.  Not commercial, not private, not anything.  Because deep down, he knew.  He knew that one day, somehow, things were just bound to go wrong.  One day, he would lose it.  He would lose control, experience emotion, _something_.  And he would kill both himself and who knows how many other people, because of what?  Because he was selfish enough to want this?  Because he believed it when some feather-headed teacher told him he could do whatever he wanted to with his future?  No, they wouldn’t know, but he would.  He wasn’t just any kind of different.  He was a walking fire hazard.

Eight years ago, when they were all still young and careless, Lance lifted water out of a cup with his mind and some hand motions and got more excited than he had probably ever been in his life so far.  The rest of them thought it pretty cool, too, and even though Shiro and Allura both warned them to never show anybody, they still liked having the secret power.  They didn’t know to fear it.  But of course, at first the pleasure was all his.  But two weeks later, it was Keith’s turn.  But for him, it was different.  His first impulse wasn’t excitement.  It was fear.  He was in an argument with Lance, actually (whatever stupid reason it began, he had done forgot), and suddenly, the air right next to his hand burst into flame, and then he dropped it.  The flame, that is.  He dropped the flame onto the floor, and pure fire sprung into life from their carpet.  Adopted parents to the rescue – they doused it soon enough – but that didn’t stop him from being terrified.  He couldn’t just stop after that, though, and also, he wouldn’t.  Soon after that Pidge was growing plants, and Hunk was bending earth, and reckless children they all most certainly were, they used it.  They played with it.  They tested their limits.  But years later, the first lesson Keith learned about this thing of his became the most relevant: fear it. 

Therein lay the real problem, the biggest stumbling block of them all.  It didn’t take a genius to know that pyromaniacs and enclosed pressurized spaces some three thousand feet into the air didn’t mix.  He would mess something up, get emotional, get injured, get _something_.  And his hand would ignite with a burning blaze, and Shiro and Allura wouldn’t put there to douse the flame when it hit the floor.  He knew that could happen.  He didn’t trust himself enough to believe it couldn’t.  Any idiot would know that was a problem.  So why couldn’t he get this through his thick skull?

Sometimes, he wondered how long it would take, before someone found out.  He could control this power, mostly, but sometimes, he didn’t.  Only up to now, every time he lost control and enacted spontaneous combustion was when he was at home and everything was still okay.  But what if he wasn’t?  What if something happened at a place like _here_?  Sometimes, he could swear there was some way they could know.  They would see it in him, and it would all be over.  They’d detect that “quintessence” stuff Pidge was always rambling about. 

But what could he do about it?  Nothing, apparently.  This past year, he has come here more and more often, and with that came more and more moments of doubt, fear, and rage, just like this.  Just like right now, as he stood here like an idiot staring down a stupid sign.  A sign that seemed to bore into his soul, and peer into his every step.  But two could play at that game.  He could watch them back.  He would keep on guard.  He would trust no one, just like he always knew he should.  Because he had no alternative.  He could stop, yes.  He could stay home, but that would mean giving up.  He couldn’t just _leave_.  He shouldn’t stay, but he could do nothing else.  He was in this so far, something inside told him not to quit.  It was probably that fire.  The thing that, apparently, was linked straight to his blood.  And fire was too stubborn to be told ‘no’, even by the most well-meaning logic.  He could stay hidden.  If Shiro and Allura could do it, so could he.  He would learn how to control it.  If, of course, they didn’t already know.  If they weren’t watching…

Keith stopped dead in his tracks, although he had never moved away from them in the first place.  He got a sense.  A strange sense, but still a sense.  He moved his walk forward, looked casual, but he looked back.  For a moment, the eyes from his imagination seemed less like apprehension, and more like they belonged to someone.  That man…didn’t he just see him in the parking lot?  The one over there…gray suit, dark hair…

Keith hurried forward with the innate disconcerting sense of someone watching him, _that_ guy watching him.  Maybe all this thinking was driving him crazy.  But maybe just today he wouldn’t do the simulator.  He would look natural and go to the museum.  He had this.  He was fine.  Everything was fine.  He would play it natural, and let nothing show.  Let nothing on – nothing ever at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter took me _way_ longer to write than it should have, but voila! Here it is! This point starts off the events of the main story timeline, with some world-building and slice of life action before the plot gets underway. And, of course, some of that hopes, fears, and dreams kind of jazz.
> 
> So, first things first, disclaimer. I do not live in Oregon. I have never been to Oregon. I just so happen to live down here in the Georgia of US of A. So, to all those people who do live in Oregon, I'm really sorry if I got your state all wrong. Voltage, Oregon, is a real place, and I'll be using other real places for the story, too, but besides a bunch of Google Image searches I don't know much. So...yeah. Also, the Air Force base is totally fictional; I just modeled it after one I knew from my home state.
> 
> And also, another thing! I have never actually played Street Fighter before, so my depiction of it is probably a little less than accurate. But you see, the current year is 2001, and that makes them all 90s kids, so I needed some good ol' 90s games. And especially considering Pidge and Lance's struggle in great space mall escapade from canon, I knew I wanted to make their video gaming a thing. 
> 
> So...what else? Okay, I guess it's pretty clear now - I made elemental paladins. In your classic mad science child-experimentation-trauma sort of way, I made them superpowered, and though I didn't play much on them _using_ said powers this chapter, it will actually be important later. And all of their powers are - yeah, you guessed it - their lions' elements. So that's pretty much that. I know I kind of thrust everything forward fast into being right now, but I promise, I will explore both their lives, their pasts, and their dynamic more so in the chapters to come.
> 
> Wait, first, just _one_ more thing I have to make clear. Shiro and Allura are not married, nor am I making them romantically involved. I really wanted to explore the partner dynamic rather the relationship one, so sorry...but yeah. They all live together, but they are family above all else. And yes, the "kids" here call them Shiro and Allura, not mom and dad, but they do consider them as parents. However, considering the way things started, I felt this was most natural. Allura wasn't introduced to them as 'mom', and they were old enough to at least vaguely remember what happened. However! They are all family. I want them very much family.


	3. Something Somewhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not paranoia if you're right.

_Fire and flame licked through the eaves of crumbling walls.  The place was coming down, falling, falling around their feet.  It threatened to destroy everything – everything they needed and fought for.  Everything they were still going after._

_“It’s three levels down to the control room; we have to hurry!”_

_She went forward into the flame, unflinching at the heat.  The walls shook._

_“No, Allura.”_

_She spoke with voice like gravel.  Once light, once strong, now already broken.  She used to be the last to quit.  She used to hang on until the end._

_“We’re not leaving without this!  The building will hold long enough!”_

_She kept going forward, willing her partner to follow.  They weren’t leaving.  Not yet.  It was their duty.  It was the mission._

_Hands flushed with heat seized her forearm.  She recoiled back.  Its voice spoke, strength unchanged even by burning smoke.  “You’re a fool, Allura.  It’s over; we can’t keep possibly get what we came here for.  Do you really believe they will care if you die, too?”_

_She ignored her.  Honerva—Haggar—had nothing worth saying.  Not anymore.  She talked to the earpiece instead.  Focus, focus.  Staying focused.  Nothing was wrong.  She had to connect to them, the ones still there, the rest of the team.  But static responded.  Only static.  Her breath caught.  She threw off Honerva’s arm and headed towards where she wanted – out.  She spoke again, and again, and again._

_“Shiro!?  Shiro, can you read me?  Are you still there?”_

* * *

 

_Present Day_

“Did you get the license plate number?”

Pidge asked without looking at him, her eyes now glued to the screen of her computer.  About as soon as he started talking she was on it, logging in to get to her PC’s more _interesting_ files.  That is, these were the ones from the folder that was password protected and had a firewall all its own, in addition to all the extra security measures her main computer already had.  Was it a bit much?  Maybe.  But you could never be too careful.  Hunk and Lance told her she was paranoid.  Keith, on the other hand, understood.  Because when it came down to things like this, they got to be at it _together_.

“He was too far out of the parking lot before I could get a good look,” Keith spoke methodically, as if he was still thinking hard about the incident last night.  “But I got sight of a ‘126’ at the end.”

  1. She typed it down and proceeded to stare down her log, the substance of the matter that held so much seriousness and excitement; it seemed a shame it had to be held in something as innocuous as a Word document. It wasn’t that long, really.  With the inclusion of yesterday, it had exactly 23 entries, of which at least half would probably be best off thrown out, there was so little evidence, so few details.  And the information that was there was most likely superfluous.  Too often it was just some frenzied paranoid ecstasy, brought up solely on the principle that a first surely warranted a second.  But cut her some slack – this thing got started in 1996.  She was ten.  So obviously, she should just blame Keith.  He was older.



But they were both older now, and this time was definitely better.  She leaned back at looked at the conspiracy files with some satisfaction.  “Alright, first time since last year,” she turned to face Keith, who was busy staring into the distance with that brooding look of his, only to be interrupted by his furtive glances at Varden, who from his perch on top of the junk on her worktable was stoically engaged in staring him down.  He did that a lot, and it gave Pidge no small measure of great joy to see her family squirm under his unblinking gaze.  And they thought cats were bad.

Pidge casually got up out of her seat to stroll over to the worktable and let her pet iguana crawl up onto her shoulder.  “So, what do we got?” she let her mind churn, running and sifting over the information with a whiff of the excitement it held.  “A white guy in his thirties or something with average height, short dark hair, and an old-looking gray suit shows up at the Air Force base and you see him in the parking lot.  Then, you see him again in the lobby.  You lose him in the museum, look until you notice him leaving, and you see him drive away.  Like that?”

Keith shrugged lightly.  “Yeah, I guess that’s it.” 

So there it was.  Admittedly, it wasn’t much, but technically, it never really was.  Did they have a _reason_ people might be out there watching them all the time?  Well, yeah, of course.  Because the older they got, the more they figured – it _couldn’t_ be this easy.  Would the government just _let_ them go like this, knowing there was a chance they might have been altered?  As the story went, they probably would have gladly just kept them at the base forever had the social worker not made a fuss over it.  After all, they were orphans.  That or abandoned.  Either way, who would care?  No, they wouldn’t let this go, surely.  And if not them, someone else.  Someone who knew, who found out.  It would just be too great a phenomenon to pass up.

So yeah, was it worth watching out for?  Absolutely.  Should they be worried?  Well, sometimes she thought she should, but really, emotions like that never quite brewed to the surface.  Yeah, something bad could happened, but it’s so long since they accepted they fact, it had no spark.  This whole investigation was just a project, a juicy morsel of brain games opened up to them, inviting them to figure it out—to outsmart the adults.  Because yeah, she knew that their house alone had evidence of the use of misuse of their powers written all over it already.  Hiding it was out of the question if they went as far as they might have.  But that didn’t mean they would do anything about it.  They would want the right opportunity, but the watched became the watchers, that meant they had a chance.  They could always stay one step ahead in this little game of theirs.

But still, they didn’t have much.  But that just meant doing what they did best – speculation.  “So, what do we know?” her question rolled back around.  “If he was there from the parking lot, he probably either followed you there, or he knew you went there all the time already.  He got your habits down.”

“Yeah, but if he just wanted to know where I went, why stand around and watch?  What would he think I was doing?” Keith took a glance towards the open Word document as he mused. 

“Heh, I don’t know, assess your mad pilot skills?”

Keith shook his head.  “No, there’s no way he could have followed me down to the simulator.  It’s empty; I would have seen him.”

“Well, if he is government, he could probably just go wherever he wanted.”

“Then why not?  They have cameras everywhere; why make himself seen?”

“Maybe he was running a test.  Had to get up close?”

“I guess he could have been hiding something in the suit…”

“That, or it could have been on purpose.  You know, see if you saw him?  He could have been testing your perception.  He might have wanted to assess your sixth sense, or maybe by your reaction if you were anticipating him there.”

“…we might be overthinking this.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

With a heave and a sigh, Pidge returned to her seat by the computer, where her entirely unaffected iguana crawled back off her shoulder and meandered onto the desk.  She scrolled through the log and looked for something – a common thread, a connecting factor that put the incidents together.  But then again, most of the incidents weren’t solid anyways.  This is the best thing they’ve had in a while.

“Ever since the first time, it’s all happened outside our house.  That’s something,” she noted.

“Heh, yeah.”  The edges of Keith’s mouth upturned in a smile at the memory.  “They probably thought it was a bad idea after that.”

In that light, Pidge couldn’t help but laugh too.  “Oh man, you’re right!  I still remember the look on that guy’s face.  You would think the squirrels picked up and started chasing him.”

“Well, you got to admit, he couldn’t have expected it.  Two kids alone in the woods?  That would practically _spell_ ‘easy’.”

“But man, when we saw him, we chased that dunderhead to next tomorrow!” Pidge gleamed with pleasure at the memory.  Yes, if they were normal, that would have the scariest thing ever.  But they weren’t normal, and that was _great_.  Because on that summer day in 1996, Keith noticed this random guy hiding in a bush in the woods behind their house, and they both simultaneously did the natural thing and took over after him.  When he ran away, that made it even better.  Sure, they lost him eventually, but to a couple kids ten and twelve, that was the biggest adrenaline rush ever, like ‘Cops and Robbers’ just came to life.  Hunk and Lance were so jealous.  Well, okay, maybe just Lance.  But still, that could have been one reason the other two never quite understood what they were up to.  But for her and Keith, that was the one that started it all.

Keith laughed a little too.  “Yeah, that guy was probably just trying to steal the chickens.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” her smile lingered as they passed over that relic of the past noncommittedly.  It could have been nothing.  But he knew as well as she did – everything _might_ be something.  That’s why it was on the log.

She turned back to the log and with a few last words pressed ‘save’ and closed it out.  She looked briefly at the file names of the rest of the folders’ contents – things like news clippings, photos, theories, evidence maps.  But, as usual, she already knew there was no connection.  This man in particular that may or may not (most likely) had stalked Keith yesterday didn’t match any previous description, but that wouldn’t stop her.

“Next time I get the chance, I could do some more research.”  It had been a long while since she had.  There might be something.  “And…we’ll see!” She closed the folder.

 

It wasn’t until that Tuesday afternoon that she got that chance.  It was after school, and Pidge had her hands on one of the three computer machines boasted by the school’s Drafting classroom, a.k.a. Geometry class, a.k.a. home of the robotics team.  They were having their “meeting” today, as they did most every day, although now it really wasn’t much of a meeting because it was the end of the year and their season had already ended weeks ago.  They didn’t win anything at competition this year, because _somebody_ (Jordan) had to screw over the programming at the last minute and as such the robot wouldn’t respond for their first two matches.  But whatever.  Next year – next year would be good.  She would be a sophomore then, and with that came _seniority_.

She was nicely situated in the corner with her feet crossed-legged in the chair and the screen turned towards the wall, where she plugged away at the internet and “just looked at the news”.  She had a pretty good view of everyone else in the airy, junk-filled room: Max and Jackson playing cards, Derrick doing homework, Jordan playing minesweep.  Meanwhile, Hunk and Olia were actually being productive and tinkering with the drive train of last year’s robot.  And then there was Keith, way over on the far corner of the room with a textbook open and earphones on.  He wasn’t actually part of the club, but in addition to her and Hunk’s meeting, Lance was here off down the hall working (probably cramming) on some project for art class, so he opted to stay too.  After all, Keith was their ride.  He would have had to come back. 

“So, what’cha looking at?”

And then there was Matt.  The team was complete.  “Oh, nothing,” she shrugged nonchalantly, letting on her usual closed and passive approach even though, of course, she knew Matt knew exactly what she was doing.  “Just looking at the news.  Finding something interesting.”  Interesting and relevant.  Something that could in some shape, form, or fashion be related to something they could connect.

She didn’t have anything yet.

“Found anything good?” Matt questioned back single eyebrow raised with that knowing smirk of his that was _totally being obvious, Matt_.

“Nope,” she smiled back, even if that other part on the inside was groaning and banging its head against the wall in frustration at her clear lack of anything.  But, that was okay.  She could let it go for now.  It’s not like it was imminently serious or anything.  Again, half of the search probably stemmed from her desire just to be _right_.

Matt just laughed and pushed his glasses up.  “Great to know you’re being productive, Pidge.”

“Hey!” the slacker in question retorted back in mock indignation.  “And what have _you_ been doing, huh?”

“Oh, just coding.  You know, _productive_ things.”

“Yeah?” Pidge looked aside instinctively to the tabletop where Matt’s laptop lay.  He was one of the fortunate few to have one of his own – granted it was a 95 and weighed as much as a sack of bricks, but yeah.  She remembers him saving up for that thing.  Great, but she’ll hog the school computers, still.

“Yep, and I can say with confidence we are now clear for SSAnimeTimeOnline.com.”

Pidge responded with a well-deserved back-handed slap across the nerd’s shoulders.  “That doesn’t count!”

Matt rubbed his injured shoulder caressingly and feigned hurt.  “Hey, it’s _experience_.”

“Pfft, I had the school servers down since sixth grade.  Call me when you hack into NASA.  _Then_ I’ll be impressed.”

“Hmmm, I could go for that.”

“You’re such a bad influence.”

Matt responded with a shrug and Pidge made a point to be going back of turning back to her own computer so she could work in peace.  But, of course, it wasn’t like his was an unwelcome intrusion. 

“Okay, I need nerd help!”

But then again, she really might not get anything done after all.  She looked up in exasperation to find Lance marching in, angry and covered head to toe with a fresh coating of what was most likely clay. 

“What did you do?  Roll in the mud?” Pidge perked up one eyebrow in fresh incredulity.

“Ha _ha_ ,” he came closer their way, still unamused.  “The pottery wheel exploded on me again!  I was just fine, and then BOOM!  There it went.  That thing is broken!”

“’Exploded’?  Really, Lance?” Yeah, she didn’t have time for this.  None of them are going over there just because Lance can’t do art or something.

“No, really!”

“What?  I just fixed that thing last week!” Olia’s voice sounded from across the room, instantly prompting Pidge to recant her earlier assumption that the wheel was just fine. 

Lance turned over her way where she and Hunk were still hunched by the pulled-out pieces of the drive train, “Yeah, the pedal is stuck again!  I only pressed it a little further and now I can’t get it up again!”

“So you just stood there and let the thing splatter you?” Pidge didn’t know much about art, but she had a feeling Lance’s current adornment was not intentionally part of the process.

“I was trying to get my piece off!  It _happens_!”

“Alright, alright, I’ll look at it again,” Olia conceded and got up off the floor.

“Anything I could do to help?” Hunk offered readily.

“Yeah, that’d be great.  The issue last time was that the latch in the pedal was locked and failed to disengage, but it wasn’t the only component with problems.  It’s a _really_ old model…”

“Hey, Lance!”

The pair was interrupted by a voice in the door belonging to none other than Shay Balmerr, wearing a paint-stained apron and thus, evidently, fresh from the art room herself. 

Lance swiveled around quickly.  “What?  What happened?”

“Oh, nothing – you left the room so quickly, I wanted to make sure you weren’t hurt.”

“Shay!” Hunk responded to the other art student’s entry with friendly exultation, and the two came together in a quick hug, because, well, dating couples did that, Pidge supposed.  “How have you been?  I haven’t seen you!”  It was last Friday.

“Oh, I’ve been well!” Shay pulled her dark hair back and smiled.  “Just working on a new piece for my portfolio.”

“Oh, I’ll have to come over and see it!  We’re not doing a lot right now, I could come over…oh, wait!” Hunk startled awkwardly.  “I _am_ coming over!  Me and Olia were going to have a look at the pottery wheel, right?” he turned back to his teammate, who with Lance was semi-patiently waiting by the door while Hunk and Shay had their moment.

“Yep,” Olia affirmed and moved off down the hall, the rest of the crew following.  Pidge sighed and looked back to her screen.  Life was full of distractions, alright. 

“He probably broke it,” Pidge shrugged nonchalantly.

“Altea-Clan strikes again,” Matt added with the term often used on them by the others at school, having that unique of being four siblings of about the same age (well, adopted, obviously) going to the same school.

Pidge shoved her friend on the shoulder semi-violently and resumed her work.

 

* * *

 

 

Once, long ago, Shiro would considered running off of coffee and protein bars a perfectly acceptable means of nutrition.  Sometimes, he still did, but not with the same vigor.  The change probably came at some point when he got himself involved in the process of cooking for, shopping for, and eating with four young children in need of a balanced diet, or so it said in those books he read on the subject, because, honestly, he had forgotten how to eat in his Garrison days.  Or maybe he never knew it in the first place, because he still remembers many pages of vitamins and minerals and food pyramids later, all he could think of was that he never knew eating could be this complicated.  Still, as a result, his own diet got changed forever, too, and although he believed he in the process might have lost the ability he once had to go on little or nothing for days at a time, it was worth it.

Still, it was for this reason that he and Allura found themselves now afflicted with hunger a mere six hours since the last full meal.  And since the kids were still at school tonight, he and Allura were already determined at 6:30PM to not wait and eat dinner alone, which he would make himself utilizing his now well practiced twelve years of cooking skills.

Of course, as far as nutrition goes, some would argue that a spaghetti dinner was _not_ that valid as a healthy option.  But it was real food, it didn’t come ready-made in a package, and it wasn’t coffee-based, so that gold enough for tonight.  It was honestly one of the best meals Shiro knew how to make.  The truth was, there was only person who could _truly_ cook in this house, and that was Hunk, and he wasn’t here.  Generally, the cooking would fall to Coran otherwise, but he was currently a thousand miles away in Scotland, visiting with family, so it was really just him and Allura tonight. 

Allura sat at the bar as Shiro proceeded to boil the noodles, as she wore weekday weariness under her eyes.  “Had to deal with this preposterous woman at the station today,” she started seamlessly into the tales of her work today with Shiro content to listen.  “Marc had arrested this teenager last night for a D.U.I., and his mother came in this morning after him.  You’d think she’d be upset towards her son, but she was absolutely convinced we had made a mistake.  She couldn’t stop explaining what a _good_ kid he was, and how he had _never_ had a drink before, and, of course, how we were being paid with _her_ taxpayer dollars,” she laughed dryly.  “She stayed for a full hour before paying bail, after making us fully aware of our incompetence, I’m sure.” She paused, then added with a bemused smile, “Of course, it was mostly just me towards the end.  Everyone else was nowhere to be found rather quickly.”

Shiro smiled too as he stirred in the noodles.  “They did say you were good at diplomacy.”

“I suppose that _is_ my job,” Allura conceded with an exhausted laugh.  “Although I must say that such squabbles are one of its _least_ inviting qualities.  So, how about yourself?  Are the cadets doing well?”

“It’s a good class,” Shiro nodded shortly, as usual a little less ready with a wealth of words on the subject than Allura was.  How was it going?  Well, going like it always was.  He had been put in charge of the newer recruits coming in to the Base, primarily training for physical endurance.  He was given the position on the basis of his work with the Garrison, although, of course, they had no idea what _exactly_ that work was or who exactly _he_ was.  Same with Allura and the police core.  But as far as how his work went, he never saw anyone for long.  His was a ‘sink or swim’ kind of class.  Either you did well and got to move on with your training, or you did terribly and had to leave.  Either way, students came and went.

“Most of them are doing well enough to pass,” he continued.  “But then, they just took away some of the obstacles in the testing course.  Too many recruits getting hurt.” He paused, then laughed shortly.  “Training isn’t exactly like it was back in our time.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Allura smiled at the mutual memory of those grueling beginning training days.  She then stopped for a moment with the flash of a thought recalled, then asked, “Shiro, have you seen Keith over there lately?”

Shiro shook his head.  “No, I wouldn’t see him where I am, but I heard he’s still been coming regularly.”

“Right,” she paused to thrum her fingers on the countertop vinyl.  “It’s just, he hardly ever talks about it anymore; I’m worried.  And just the other day, I tried asking him about it, and he snapped back at me!  I mean, yes, he’s _Keith_ , he does that, but he’s being distant and I told him so.”

“Yes, he’s…” Shiro paused with his spoon still in the sauce, trying to think of the right way to go at this.  He understood, and yet, sadly, he knew he didn’t.  “He’s had a lot on his mind lately.”

“I know!” she exhaled harshly and breathed back in, letting go of her tense uprising to resume an expression more akin to worry.  “He was just so excited before, about being a pilot.  I know his interests can change.  But you said he still goes there.  So I have to think…it could be something else.”

Shiro resumed stirring the sauce as he mused.  Yes, he had thought about this.  No, he didn’t know what to do about it.  How to read or restore the emotions of another at any age was a task he did not think he could ever have.  But he did know a few things about life.  One of them was the need for patience, and thus that was the best way he knew to act.  “We need to give him time.  He will come to us when he’s ready.”  Will he?

Allura gave a long sigh in response.  “I suppose you’re right.  I just can’t believe he’s graduating next year.  And the others aren’t far behind.  I mean, _all_ of them!  They’re teenagers!  Whenever did this happen?” she laughed with what may have been either a natural or deliberate lightening of the mood.  “They’re all so grown up.”

Shiro smiled.  “Yes, it does seem like yesterday we were still chasing them around the house.”

“We _still_ chase them around the house,” Allura retorted jestingly, no doubt last weekend’s crater in the backyard still fresh in her mind.  Call it the quintessence effect if you will, those four were quite bent on destruction.  But, of course, Shiro had stopped minding that years ago. 

“Well, at least they’re free to do so.  Spaghetti’s ready, by the way.”

Allura got up from her seat to get some plates to set their table for two, because, of course, the kids still weren’t home yet (robotics club just got longer and longer…).  “Yeah…that’s true,” she paused a moment, then turned back towards him.  “Shiro, do you think they’re happy at school?  Socially, I mean.  I think they’ve been fine with each other, but what about their peers?  Sometimes, I wonder if they even _have_ friends.  I only ever see Matt and Shay,” she chewed over the fact a second.  “Coincidentally, they’re the only two outside the family that _know_.”

“We’ve talked to them before,” Shiro noted as he proceeded to strain the noodles from the pot.  “And we both know that this would be difficult for them, keeping their abilities a secret.  We just have to be there when they need us.”

“But we won’t always; that’s why I’m _thinking_ about it,” Allura noted emphatically, then relaxed as she walked off to grab the forks.  “Of course, this does remind me of when they were little.  Remember when we were worried that Pidge and Keith were too alone?  Back then, it seemed it was Lance and Hunk who had all the friends.  And we kept trying to set them up with someone…”

“And it happened without us.”

“On the same day!” she laughed at the memory.  “I remember; I was still at the station, and I got called to pick up Pidge at the principal’s office because she got in a fight at the playground.  And then she told me what happened, and it turns out she was defending this scrawny new kid named _Matt Holt_ ,” she paused to shake her head, and Shiro knew why, because that was just totally something _she_ would do.  It was painfully ironic sometimes in the past how the one who was both their youngest and shortest had the record for getting herself in the most fights, although Keith certainly had his fair share.  “And then I get home, and find out that Keith picked up this stray cat and named it _Red_ , of all things.  Granted, _his_ new ‘friend’ was a _cat_ , so I’m not so sure that counts, but still.”

“The same day…” Shiro repeated musingly as he too found himself smiling at the thought.  The kids – they weren’t conventional, that was for sure.  And the number of times they got themselves into trouble would be cause of concern for any normal parent, but sometimes, he couldn’t help but sense that, because of the way they began, anything that had any semblance of personality, or of freedom was a victory.  Shiro wasn’t a father.  He had not the skill or possession to be a true “father”.  But he still would call them “his”, and he did what he could.  And Allura did more than she gave herself credit for. 

“I suppose we learned that day,” he continued.  “The kids _could_ make it on their own.”

“I suppose,” Allura, now seated at the table but without yet food on her plate, consented.  “But sometimes, I can’t help but wonder if we’re doing it right.  Or, if _I_ am…doing _enough_ , that is.  It’s just the fact that soon they’ll be gone, on their own, away from both us and each other.  Are they ready?  I don’t know – what do they want to do?  Who will they be?  They all have their own talents, I know, but are they _really_ ready for the world?”

Silence reigned for about a second and a half.  Shiro would let her have time to think, but also wanted to be ready to have the right thing to say, but it was she who spoke first.  “You know, I can’t thank you enough for what you did back then, coming in on this.  It was all very sudden – even _I_ didn’t know I would volunteer to adopt these four,” she reminisced, but was quick to add: “I have no regrets, of course.  I wouldn’t trade this for _anything_.  But…I hope I was enough.”

Shiro was ready to reply.  He was ready to reassure – it was fine.  They would be okay.  It would turn out just fine; you did the best you could do.  At the very least, whatever happened or didn’t happen wasn’t her fault – they were all a little broken, still.  But he said nothing.  Neither did she.  Their food was left untouched.  It was going to stay that way.

They tensed on simultaneous impulse and moved on mutual understanding.  They didn’t get up quickly, but kept one eye on the doorway and the other by the window.  They both knew.  Twelve years later, they never lost that ability to know, because the overwhelming sense of suspicion and presence was one that never left you.  It was skill learned through practice.  Repeated, repeated practice.  You never forgot.

Someone was there.  Someone was outside, right by the window.  Why – they didn’t know.  How – it was an unfenced property, so yes, they supposed they did know.  It had just never happened before. 

Shiro let his cybernetic arm glow a dull purple.  Unfortunately, they were nowhere near the safe where both their guns were, but themselves only should suffice.  He edged a little out of his chair…

 _CRRIIIISSH!!!_ Glass went flying in all directions as a small oblong object came sailing in through the window.  Allura and Shiro took up and ran the other way just as fast, getting as much distance as possible – three, two…

BOOOOM!

The grenade went off and the kitchen collapsed behind them.  Allura and Shiro were faceplanted on the ground when it happened, but as soon as it did, they sprung up to face it.  And with it, they faced the assailants neither original nor subtle who ran in quick over the rubble-rich gaping hole in the wall.  There was no time to wonder.  There was no time to think.  There was only time to act.

It must have been ten of them in all.  They dressed in black and purple head to toe with weapons plenty and faces covered with a ghoulish-looking white mask, complete with a lined design and three sets of “eyes”.  Shiro went at it with two at once, the one arm blazing.  He sliced one’s gun in half like butter, and to the other he landed a blow to the chest.  He was soon hit from behind, to which effect he spun around and met him for blow.  As the attacker stumbled he by instinct went for the neck but missed and made a slicing motion to the face instead, cracking open the mask and revealing that the wearer inside was, indeed, a man, complete with a raging scar over his eye and a cold glare underneath.  He went forward anyways, and this time broke through his suit and into his shoulders, leaving a fresh, thick trail of blood underneath.

Shiro took blow from another in an instant of distraction, sending him crashing hard into the standing lamp in the corner.  He was rusty – he was definitely rusty.  One glance to the side caught Allura on the other end of the living room, still holding her own hand-to-hand.  A moment of quick thinking prompted Shiro to take the lamp out from under him and smash its head, throwing back to Allura the pole that remained.  The bow staff was always her favorite weapon of choice.  She caught it.

One glance forward showed another figure coming for him.  Shiro sprung up to meet it – but he was quickly caught by surprise.  This one had a robotic arm too.  A bigger one.  He went forward with a punch and they met head on, fist to fist.  He drew back and went forward again, and so did he.  Or her. 

“Ha!  Where did you pick up your arm?  The scrap heap?”

It was a man.  Shiro went at him again, but the taunts continued.  “No, it was seventies, wasn’t it?  Does it play disco?  Ha!”

Shiro kept on.  He met the man blow for blow, but inside, he could already feel his chest heaving under the strain.  All these years, he had never stopped going.  He had never stopped moving.  He had never stopped training.  But he had stopped fighting.  That might make a difference.

But Shiro also knew he could have speed over this man’s weight.  He went forward, knocked him to one side, brought his arm around, and _there_.  His arm glowed purple against the man’s neck.  It was the shot he needed, but one look out of the corner of his eye stopped him.  Because while he had been caught up in the one, Allura had the many, and now six had her cornered against the wall.  He needed to help her…

WHAM!

Shiro took a hit to the chest and went careening backwards.  His ribs instantly roared with pain; his back held fast to the floor.  In an instant he had to call on his quintessence, and his body went translucent as the man took a shot at him only for the bullet to faze through his form and become imbedded in the floor planks.  If his goal was pure flight, Shiro could have fazed through those same planks and dropped to temporary safety in the basement below, but of course, he wouldn’t.  He got back up and materialized again – he could only keep that up so long – and he went again for the attacking mass.  Grabbing one by the leg as he was coming up, he threw it into another one and sent both crashing into the T.V.  He broke through and went at one.  Went at another.  He didn’t know where she was anymore.  Went at another.  He counted four unconscious on the ground.  He didn’t see them all.  And another.

BLAM!

He fell forward, limbs immobilized, chest roaring, blood seeping slowly onto the floor.  It didn’t go through.  He was sure it didn’t go, not all the way through. 

“You’re outdated, soldier.”

His vision faded into black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, it took way longer to update this than it should have! But, well, hey...it's back.
> 
> So anyhow, yes, things went down. How exactly? Well, you'll find out. Eventually. Soon. But no, don't worry - Shiro and Allura are still alive and all, just...missing. You know, get it? Like Shiro? He's got this habit of going...like...yeah...
> 
> Okay, I'm bad.
> 
> Anyways! Yes, this was definitely meant to be a transitional chapter. So far we've been setting the scene, but next chapter is when the actual plot will really be getting underway. (I'm so excited! *evil grins*) Only one last note I want to make about this chapter - that scene with the robotics club? Totally pulled from personal experience. You know, just in case "after school we hang out at school" sounds weird. We just got in the habit of meeting every day, that even when it's the end of the year and there's nothing, we're still there. And half of us would be on Minecraft, because someone ran a proxy server and essentially hacked in. Now, I would have to say, I was guessing on some of this. I'm really not sure what the school computer situation looked like in 2001, but, well, it was probably something like that.


	4. The Hanging Door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The kids come home, but it's not the one they know. Everything's about to change...

“Hey, has anyone seem my chemistry book?  I can’t find it anywhere.”

“I don’t know, man – but why are you looking for it _now_?”

“Punch buggy!”

“OWW!  Pidge, we’re not even playing that game right now!”

“It’s not a game; it’s a life.”

“Well, _two_ can…”

“Guys, _quiet_!  I’m driving!”

Keith barked to all the car’s inhabitants in response to Pidge and Lance shoving on each other in the back seat, and, as such, being felt in _his_.  Hunk sat quietly, currently shotgun, as he proceeded to thumb through his bookbag’s contents, where his chemistry book, unfortunately, was not.  He probably left it in Robotics again. 

“Alright, _Dad_ ,” Pidge droned in the back seat, where Hunk saw from the rearview mirror her sneak another poke Lance’s way.

“Hey!” Lance retorted indignantly while Pidge smirked back and then went on casually:

“So, what do you think’s for dinner tonight?  I’m in between Chinese takeout and tacos.”

“I don’t know…” Hunk gave the clock on the dashboard a guilty glance in realization of just how late they were getting home, which usually meant that Allura and Shiro would have had to pull something together unplanned.  Because as it was, cooking had become _his_ self-imposed responsibility, since, well, he could do it.  So of course, he felt bad for leaving them hanging.  “It’s already 7:35. They probably ate already.”

“Well, whatever it is, I hope it’s good!” Lance chimed in, previous poking offenses forgotten.  “I’m _starving_!”

“Yeah, sorry guys for making you stay so late,” Hunk shrugged apologetically.  “The potter’s wheel was a much longer task than we realized.  And…well, me and Shay got to talking, so yeah…”

Pidge responded to his last confession with a dead-panned “uh-huh” whereas Lance was quick to throw it in stride.  “Hey, don’t worry about it, man!  You and your girl have at it!  It wasn’t too long – right, Keith?”

“Yeah, I guess…we’ve been staying late a lot lately,” Keith broke his focus transfixed on the road briefly to simply answer and shrug.  Of course, with Keith, Hunk _did_ feel guilty that he often didn’t have his own reason to stay on days like this, and as such would be off in a corner alone.  Of course, Keith never seemed to mind.  He was definitely an introvert, which was okay, of course, but still, Hunk felt bad leaving him alone.  Usually, he would come around every once in a while to talk to his brother wherever he was, but of course, sometimes he got busy.

“Oh yeah, speaking of that…” Lance started with the tone that left Hunk in apprehension of the question to follow.  “Hunk, you wanna go on a double date this weekend?  You and Shay; me and Veronica; ice cream.  How about it?”

“Veronica?” Hunk echoed in confusion, as, literally, he had no idea who that was.

“Girl at the gas station,” Lance replied smoothly, in such a way that Hunk could almost see that self-confident grin on his face from behind the seat.  “So, what do you say?”

Well, it didn’t seem like a bad idea in itself, he supposed.  Or, at least, he could really think of no good reason to refute it.  “Uhhh…yeah…I guess.  But I’d have to ask Shay.  We both have work to do, and we actually already planned on going out to a movie this weekend.”

“Oh yeah?  What movie?”

“It’s a new one.  _Atlantis_?  A Disney movie, but…it looked pretty good.”

“Hey, great idea, maybe me and Veronica can go with you on _that_!”

“But…you wanted to go out for…?”

“Oh, nah.  It doesn’t matter.  Veronica said we could whatever, just as long as it was double.  So, yeah, movies!  (She likes Disney, right…?),” Lance muttered the last thought to himself.

Hunk just left him to it and determined to ask Shay later.  She liked his family (or at least always seemed to), so hopefully, she wouldn’t mind sharing their time with them (again…).  Still, even though Hunk was willing to help Lance out, he did want to make sure Shay didn’t feel left out.  She deserved quality time.  To say Shay was something special would be an understatement.  She was bright, and kind, and smart, and honest, and compassionate.  She was _beautiful_.  And it was even better now that there were no secrets between them.  He still remembered strong the events of last summer, where he wrestled his conscience into a heap, wondering if it would be the right thing to tell Shay, and eventually through an accidental discovery on her part got an excuse to tell all.  She knew now everything about who they were – the lab, the powers, the quintessence… Everything.  And Hunk was sure that had to be the right thing.

But, anyways, he could wait until school was out – then they would have time.  Actually, he knew for a fact they would, because Hunk already had plans on taking a trip with her family.  They actually talked about it a lot today – every year, Shay and her family went down to Isleta, her parents’ home village on a reservation in New Mexico.  Her parents and grandmother had emigrated to Oregon when she was little, but the family still made themselves a regular part of their ancestral Puebloan community.  And this year, Hunk was invited to come along, which was really, really an honor.  He was glad to get a chance to join them – he knew how much Shay’s family meant to her.  Granted, it would be odd being away so long from his own family, but it would be nice, all the same.  But that was just one more thing they had in common.  Hunk’s family meant a lot to him, too.

“You know what I wanna see?” Lance continued to go on.  “Pearl Harbor.  It comes out next month.  _You_ would like it, Keith – it’s about these Air Force guys.  Hey, maybe we could all go together!  Sounds good, right?”

“Eh, maybe.  I saw the trailer,” Pidge ventured.  “Sounds great, but it already looks like another one of those stupid love triangle films.”

“It’s not _that_ stupid!  I can think of plenty—”

“Guys…”

“—movies that – wait, what?  What’s up, Keith?”

“Look.”

One word and Hunk could hear Lance’s breath catch in his throat.  The car went silent.  Hunk broke from his state of thought just in time for his eyes to dart to Keith’s – grave, still, wide-eyed and focused straight ahead.  Only, it wasn’t the road he was focused on.  He knew, because just a few seconds earlier the ground beneath their tires had changed from asphalt to gravel, marking the start of their long off-road driveway.  They were home.  Keith was looking at their house.  Hunk followed his gaze, and his reaction mimicked the first.

The place was a wreck.  Charcoaled debris littered the cracking walls and the empty sidewalk.  Broken glass from the windowpanes lay silent in the bushes.  The front door hung from its hinges, open, swinging back and forth, back and forth.  He saw what looked like a splattering of broken bricks and slabs of drywall on the left side of the house, somewhere near where the kitchen was.  It was like…what was this?  An explosion?  An earthquake?  But that wasn’t the worst part.  That wasn’t the part that lulled him and the rest of them into dead silence, staring transfixed at their shattered home.  They’ve had disasters before.  They’ve broken walls.  They’ve broken windows.  They’ve sent the plumbing and the wiring crumbling.  And many times, that was just it, it was _their_ fault.  But this was different.  This was wrong.  They weren’t there this time, and now, neither were their parents.  That was the problem with this scene.  It was nothing but silence.  Silence, besides the distant clutter, the distressed noises from the animals in the backyard, and a furtive barking on the wind that probably came from his dog, Oro.  But here, right in front of them, there was not even the hint of movement, besides the lonely wind in the bushes and the door.  There was no Shiro.  There was no Allura.  There was not even the most distant din of sirens, some emergency vehicle rolling in to pick up the damage and save the day.  There was nobody.

But, there had to be.  This was just an accident, that’s all.  Shiro and Allura had to still be here.  Somewhere.

“Hey…uh…that looks like some kitchen fire, huh?” Lance’s voice was shaky as it tried for comforting optimism.  The car was still silent for a moment, no one responded, but Hunk thought he should join the effort.

“Yeah…they’re probably in the backyard,” Hunk tried slowly, searching his brain frantically for reasoning, for logic.  There was a perfectly good explanation.  He was sure of it.  There was no reason for it to be like this, this…disconcerting.  “They…probably went to the shed?”  The last part came as a question, but it wasn’t intended to be.  But if Lance was having a hard time, what more luck could _he_ have?

“Just…stop the car.”

Pidge’s voice came out as a squeak from the back seat but ended like a command, one for which Keith was quick to comply.  Driving down a gravel road was agonizing slow right now.  The stopped right in the middle of it, followed by a simultaneous opening and hasty shutting of all four of their respective doors.

They practically ran to the door, drawn by a mutual urgency, a need to see and know.  And with each stride, Hunk hoped.  He tried to convince himself.  It was fine.  Everything was fine.  It wasn’t as bad as it looked.  They were going to find them there, perfectly okay, just had a little accident – yeah, a little kitchen fire, but no one was hurt, and they would be embarrassed for worrying so much and just laugh about it and let this be just another story to laugh about again years later.  This – this he wanted to be true.  He wanted so badly.  But it wasn’t.

It was even worse on the inside.  Hunk came in just slightly trailing the other three, but he was stuck behind when they stood there, just a few feet into the doorway, echoing the same choked gasp.  But the paralysis only worked its spell for a moment.  Then came the panic.

Pidge ran for the kitchen.  Keith ran for the backyard.  Lance cantered forward, eyes glancing furtively to where he stepped, calling.  “Allura!  Shiro!”  The call was only answered by more calls.  Pidge was sounding the same.  The door to the back could be heard sliding open, and it stayed there.  But Hunk was still stunned.  He walked slowly forward, taking in the scene about him, the one that dared to let him believe this was not real at all.  It had to be a nightmare.  His eyes longed to close themselves shut just to reenter that sweet state of sleep.  They didn’t want to see this.  But they had to. He couldn’t help it.  With the horror came a need.  A need to know.  To need to see.

He had to figure out what happened here.

Their living room had been transformed into a war zone.  It was broken – all of it.  Scattered about the floor were the remains of everything the space once held - furniture, lights, electronics, ceramics – mingled with bits of broken wall and glass and, for the effect of true horror, large, wet, sticky, dark red stains.  And he could smell it.  And with one glance he, oh, so hoped to God above this wasn’t real.  This couldn’t be.  But it was blood.  There was blood everywhere.  It was on the rug here, on the wall there, draped in patchwork across the sofa, crusted on the table.  He looked down and by his feet lay the post of what used to be a floor lamp with both sides broken and the resulting spear-like end on the top stained with blood.  It was as if…no.  He couldn’t think about it.  He couldn’t look at it.  This was too much.  It couldn’t just be one injury.  That wouldn’t be logical.  It had to have been something…something _really_ bad.  And as much as he tried so hard to keep himself together, he couldn’t help but for his imagination to run morbid and see horrible things beyond the scene before him, things the scene seemed to try to tell him.  He tried to stop.  He tried to kick those thoughts out.  But he couldn’t, because he didn’t know.  He didn’t know…just. What. Happened. Here.

Hunk couldn’t take it anymore.  His stomach rose unbidden.  He too darted for the kitchen, but for him, it was one ticket straight to the trash can where he hunched over and retched passionately. And, for good measure, retched again.  Stomach contents emptied, he closed his eyes and gripped the side of the trash can as if for dear life.  Putrid stomach acid lay dumped beneath him, and for a moment, Hunk was sure his heart and his breath lay there with it.

“Hunk…”

Hunk lifted his eyes and saw Pidge standing there, looking…much smaller than usual, with haunted eyes and a face pale white.  And right beside her he saw it.  A hole.  Where the window once was, there was a big, gaping hole in the wall, surrounding by the shattered pieces of everything else their kitchen held.  And with one look to her eyes, he knew.  They both knew.  This was too much, it was too big to be an accident.  Anything they could have possibly done would not have caused a hole like that.  At the very least, the problem should lay with the stove, on the other side of the room, or maybe the lights.  Maybe from the boiler, one story below the dining room, on the more untouched south side of the house.  But this?  This was different. They knew enough to know.  This looked…deliberate.

“I couldn’t find them in the backyard!” Keith’s voice broke in huffing to the living room.  Hunk stepped out toward him to see Lance too, running down from the stairway. 

“Nothing inside, either!”

“No one?”

“Not unless Red hiding under the bed with her fur stuck out counts!” Lance gestured the state of the cat’s hair as if it were a beach ball blowing up, eyes glazed wild with distressed excitement. 

The thought of Keith’s pet made him think of his.  Oro, his golden retriever, would have been outside in the fence.  Hunk darted out past Keith and ran towards the place in question, where Oro ran around barking, restlessly switching from one end of the fence to the other, and looking ahead towards the woods.

“Oro!  Oro, are you okay?” She didn’t seem hurt, but she failed to acknowledge Hunk’s presence.  “It’s me, Hunk!  What is it, girl?”

She kept barking.  Towards the woods?  What is it with the woods?  But he had to let her go now.  He ran back inside, amidst the startled animals, for whom it should be no surprise that they were spooked – chickens, geese, and dog alike.

When he poked back in, they were arguing.

“We’ve got to go out and find them!” Lance gestured emphatically towards the back door, eyes leveled with Keith’s.

“And do _what_?  Go _where_?” Keith’s fiery purple eyes appeared wild with strain.  “Just run into the woods?  We need to _calm_ down and _plan_ this.”

“Plan!?  You want a _plan_?  You see what happened!  They could be in trouble!  We’ve got to help!”

“With _what_ , Lance?  You go out there – you’ll get yourself killed.  Along with everybody else.  We’re staying put.” Keith pointed his finger to the ground in a gesture of command.

Lance glared back, and Hunk felt a rising sense of panic. He even saw the little orange-red wisps forming around Keith's hands, and Lance's fingers twitching anxiously in return.  Oh no.  No no no.  They couldn’t fight now!  They had to stick together!  “Wait!” Hunk raised his hands placatingly as he stepped softly into the room.  “It’s okay.  We can figure this out.  We just have to…”

“Do _what_ , Hunk!?” Lance’s voice rose.

“Figure it out.”

All eyes moved to the side nearest the kitchen, where Pidge stood, hands in pockets, eyes lowered to the ground.  Once plastered wide with shock, those eyes were now peered narrow, squinting at the ground, and Hunk knew that meant her mind was churning.  She was thinking.  She looked up towards them.  

“I think…it was an explosive,” she started.  “There’s a hole in the kitchen wall,” she gestured with a nod of the head towards the place in question.  Her voice came off broken, but stoic.  It was as if all the emotion washed out, or rather got pressed and squeezed through the ringer, and only fact remained.  She paused a moment, and looked around.  “The… _blood_ ,” the word came out like a strain, “Is still warm, which means it couldn’t have been that long ago.  Maybe an hour?  So…they would have been eating.  In the kitchen.  But because of the signs of struggles, I’d guess…” she paused again with a painful sigh.  “It didn’t kill them.  But what I’m _trying_ to say is…this wasn’t an accident.  They had to have been attacked.”

The room went silent for a second.  Hunk found himself chewing it over.  Yes, it looked like she was right.  The signs were clear enough.  But while giving voice to what lay before them seemed like what they had to do, he still hated even the idea of acting detective on his own home.  It wasn’t right.  But still, he was obliged to join.  “Yeah…I guess…they might have been attacked,” he stared at the scene before him and tried, again, not to imagine it too much.  “And they had a fight right here.” It might have been stating the obvious, but it was weighty either way.  “So ummm….maybe…”  Not dead.  Please not dead.  “…kidnapped?”  It was the only alternative, maybe.  “Or…they could have gotten away.  Maybe they were chased…” his voice drifted off with a look out the shattered window.  Were they out there?  Oh, please, please, they had to be okay.

Beside him, Keith closed his eyes and lowered his head.  “That could be it.”

Lance’s eyes seemed to take in the scene with horror anew.  “Then whose blood…?”

He didn’t finish the question.  But yeah, they all thought it.  Yet both possibilities were still terrifying.  But perhaps the most pressing that lay in the air still remained: what do they do about it?  Okay, someone attacked their house.  But who?  _Why_?  And where did they go?

Hunk breathed in sharply and voiced what he thought was perhaps the only true reasonable way about this.  “Guys, we’ve got to call the police.”  That’s what they had to do.  Really, the logic was sound.  That’s what you did in times like this, right?  But still, perhaps he shouldn’t have been so surprised at the instant barrage of opposition.

“The _police_!?” Lance echoed with the vigor of objection.  “But Allura’s the sheriff!  She _is_ the police!”

“But there _are_ other…”

“No, no!  That’s too slow!  I’m telling you guys, we need to be running after them – whoever it is – right _now_!”

“And that’s the problem,” Keith’s voice sounded tersely.  “We don’t know who do this.  And until we do…we don’t know who we can trust.”

“Yeah, Keith’s right,” Pidge’s eyes turned to studying the ground again.  “We still don’t know who or why.  And for all we know, this could be about us.”

She and Keith exchanged a look, and Hunk was instantly reminded of just what the two of them shared.  They had theories, before….well, they talked about it sometimes, and he knew they kind of thought it, but he never figured it was that serious.  Not really.  Or maybe they figured on this more, and he was just out of the loop?  But they talked about being watched, the possibility that the government might be keeping tabs on them, conspiracies and things….but there was no way.  They couldn’t actually believe that, right?  At least, it couldn’t apply to this right now…

“Whoa, whoa, wait.”  Hunk raised his hands in placating protest now, not about to accept what they just implied.  “You don’t really believe the _government_ did this, right?  I mean, they’re not perfect, but they’re not the bad guys!”

“We don’t know that,” Keith replied with stern insistence.  “But yes, I’d keep the option open.” 

“Come on, we have to think about this!” Pidge raised her head and spoke emphatically.  “Who _else_ knows?  You don’t just go blasting into the house of just some random Joe and Mary.  They _had_ to have a reason.  And that was that Allura and Shiro had superhuman abilities, and they wanted it.  Heck, they could even know about _us_ too.  Maybe they wanted to get rid of them – us – for being dangerous.  Maybe they wanted to use us: make a weapon, extract the quintessence.  Stick us in a lab.  You all know _that’s_ been done before.  I don’t know!  What I do know is – _I_ don’t trust anybody!  Especially not anyone who _knows_!”

“Well hold on,” Hunk stopped.  “I get that, but how is suspecting people _really_ helping anything?  Allura and Shiro are in trouble.  We need help to find them.  We can’t just—”

“Sit here?  Do nothing?” Lance interjected, as if in need to be reinserted to this conversation.  “Yeah.  Sounds like what we’re doing right now.  Why don’t—”

“You know, Lance?” Keith swiveled back around and barked in his face.  “Why don’t you just _leave_!?  Run into the woods!  I’m _sure_ that will help!”

“What will _help_ is if we actually have a plan!” Pidge’s voice squawked with a confirmed sense of frustration morphed to anger.  “We need to investigate and find out who we’re dealing with, maybe relate to some prior evidence…”

“Oh, _please_ don’t tell me you want to look at your stupid conspiracy files or something!” Lance pounced back.

“Well, do _you_ have a better idea?”

“I don’t know!  You know what, maybe Hunk’s right!  Call 911!  Maybe the Garrison!  FBI!  CIA!  Men in Black!  I don’t care!  They’d probably be better at it than _we_ are!” 

“Well there is another problem,” Keith came back in, strained but calm compared to the rest of them.  “There’s a good chance it _does_ have something to do with us.  Even if the government – whatever branch might be involved – has anything to do with this, they will be if bring them in on it.  I’m sure they’ll find out.  So even if Shiro and Allura are rescued, there’ll still be problems.  And it won’t just be our heads, but theirs too.

Hunk...he hated it, but he couldn’t deny Keith actually had a point.  But what would they do?  Yeah…there was always that sort of threat in the air, some tension.  Like, somehow, your very existence was illegal.  But with what end?  What would they actually do about it?  And then… “But…would that really be worse?”  They’d be alive…

“No, not if we didn’t have a choice,” Pidge’s tone rose with conviction.  “We’ll find them ourselves.”

“Can we really do that?” Hunk hated to sound pessimistic, but, well, only a quick glance at the room around them would raise doubts.  “I mean, Allura and Shiro were trained fighters…”

“…taken by surprise,” Pidge finished, the gaze in her eyes turned to steel.  “But we’ll be following _them_ , not the other way around.”

“Yeah!” Lance’s look suddenly brightened, as if enhanced by the slightest prospect of possibility.  “Besides, there’s four of us, and, well, it’s not like we’re _normal_ or anything,” his glint turned mischievous, and his flexed the fingers of his right hand, as if he was about to make water bend.  He might have done for show too…if there were any liquid around besides…well…the blood.

“Well, you’re right about that,” Keith’s eyes narrowed as he nodded slowly.  “But how?”

Yeah, that was the question.  But it was a question that had to have an answer.  An answer…if only to preserve this moment right now.  Suddenly, Hunk saw it – somehow, without any details, they seemed, felt, agreed.  Not arguing about it.  He had to keep that.  So he agreed, too, and he searched his mind for a solution.  He wondered…what did they know?  What direction would make sense?  Perhaps, further east?  Into the mountains?  If only they could just find out where Shiro and Allure were directly.  Maybe the Garrison stuck a tracker in them?  It wouldn’t be too far-fetched.  But he wasn’t about to bring _them_ up as a possibility.  But maybe…

“We…might be able to track them directly,” Hunk pondered out loud.  “Allura, Shiro, they have to have a distinct energy signature about them.  If we knew what it was…”

At this, Lance suddenly alighted, more than he even expected him too.  “Hunk, you’re a _genius_!” He gestured forward with eyes wild at the possibility.  “It’s that stuff!  The quint…the quinteccent…”

“Quintessence?” Pidge offered.

“Yeah, that.  You’ve been testing that stuff, right, Pidge?  You just find _that_!”

“But, everyone _has_ quintessence…” Pidge pointed out, though her gaze seemed to be chewing on the idea.

“But not like _ours_ , right?”

“I can’t believe it.  You’re _right_ ,” Pidge brought her hand to her glasses and looked ahead, down, at everything.  “I know I have this in my notes.  The quintessence element _does_ have a unique energy signature; it appears to be different for everybody.  I can’t say I can pick ours out yet, but it definitely leaves a mark.  Pulsating electromagnetic waves.  It’s small, but bigger than an average human’s.  I tested it on Matt’s.  But they can charge particles, alter the quantum energy signature…”

Hunk was starting to catch on.  He hadn’t been there for a whole lot of her research lately, but he knew enough.  “…and you think we could detect that?  Like something seismographic?”

“Maybe.  I can’t say it’ll be strong enough from a distance.”

“Unless…we send counter waves.  We could measure the reflection.”

“Like an echolocation device, that’s it!  We’ll make a way to focus our own energy.  I have some projects we might be able to use.”

 Pidge’s face looked up to Hunk’s, bright and eager.  Keith and Lance set their sights on the two of them expectantly, with a load of hope on Lance’s part and a glimmer on Keith’s.  But perhaps, for a moment, all four of them were able to figure the carnage that lay just within arm’s reach in this very room.  They had purpose.  So…did this mean they were doing it?  It was, well, crazy.  Daunting.  Ridiculous.  They were most assuredly going to die.  But…Hunk was willing.  If this was what meant finding them, he was willing.  Someone had to help. 

“So…does this mean we have a plan now?” he ventured, with maybe just a shimmer of hope himself.

“It’ll take a while, but yeah,” Pidge nodded.  “Come on, we got work to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there you have it! Emotional trauma abundantly, and all in one scene, too. I actually meant for this chapter to be a longer one originally, include shots from the middle of the night after this scene, but it turned out to be 11000 words, and as such, felt better to be divided up. I want to make some changes to the end of the next chapter's last scene, so I'll post it a little later.
> 
> But yeah...this right here really is the start of my main plot for this story. Up to now has been more world building. So yes, it's a lot of emotion and shock value. Someone (you'll find out who soon enough) was after them, and the next story arc will focus on Keith, Lance, Hunk, and Pidge leaving home to try to get Shiro and Allura back themselves. So yeah, it's your classic 'inexperienced young heroes bypass defy all logical odds to go out and save the day solo' sort of set-ups, but to be fair, so is the actual show. Of course, there will be a lot more that happens besides this. In short, they are way, _way_ in over their heads right now.
> 
> One more thing - I do want to make a note of apology for being vague about their farm/animal situation right now. I realize that I never really made a complete picture of what it was and what they had, particularly with their pets. It was an old world-building idea (with the great assistance of my sister, PencilOfAwesomeness) that each of the original paladins would have this pet that reflected their lion in the original show. And they were all color-coordinated. As follows:
> 
> Shiro: Horse named Raven  
> Keith: Tabby cat named Red  
> Pidge: Iguana named Varden (loosely based off of Latin 'viridi', for green)  
> Hunk: Golden Retriever named Oro (Samoan for 'gold')  
> Lance: Parrot named Azula (off of Spanish 'azul', for blue)
> 
> It...was fun and all, but I didn't have much of a place to put them. As such, Azula and Raven never got mentioned, and I put in Oro in this chapter, but it felt kind of edged in there. But, of course, they'll be negligible now. However, I was wanting to later on make a companion piece for this story, just filled with drabbles from the in-between of the Paladins' childhood. That could be a good place for including in pets as characters, if I do that. Because, honestly, I'm fascinated with the idea of that bunch as children growing up together, and it is my indulgent opinion that they would have gotten into all kinds of trouble and shenanigans along the way. Read: 'The Sandlot', Voltron edition.
> 
> I don't know, it could be fun :)


	5. Spectres of Night (or, rather, the best existential crises happen at 4AM)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, the best you can do is just try.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well....this chapter's been mostly written for about a month now...but then final's happened and I put this thing on the back burner and left it there. But yeah, happy new year!

The last time Lance stared at the wall this long, he was at school.  Which…he supposed wasn’t that special, since it was today.  Or was it yesterday?  He looked at the clock at the wall.  12:36.  Yep, it was yesterday.  But just these past thirty minutes alone felt like an eternity.

Lance leaned back against the side of the bed from where he sat on the floor, resuming his previous activity of lifting droplets from a lone glass of water and flinging them at the aforementioned wall.  He also assumed his other pastime – talking to Keith, even if he had nothing to say and his companion kept stubbornly not saying much of anything back.

“So, how far do you think Hunk and Pidge got?” he brought up the half of the family absent from this room for perhaps the third time in the past ten minutes, for no better reason than that they were the most relevant thing to the moment right now.  The two had been going at it nonstop all night, full geeky science-mode stuff in the pursuit that promised to help them all find Shiro and Allura.  For a while, Keith and Lance were on hand in the background, helping them by fetching random tools and stuff, but finally, it was determined they were no longer needed and Pidge kicked them out of her room so they could ‘focus’ or whatever.  Which meant that right now, Keith and Lance were alone—in Keith’s room, to be precise.  Which meant that on any other day, Keith would probably be ticked that Lance was flinging water on his wall.  But as it was, he just sat on top of his bed, more focused on the wall in front of him than anything else, it seemed.

Lance almost wished he could get a rise out of him.  It would make things feel more…normal, he guessed.  But as it was, he just needed something to keep his mind on, because it wasn’t like either of them were going to sleep like this.  And they definitely weren’t going downstairs, either, or outside, for obvious reasons.  Unless everything that happened downstairs could disappear magically, Lance didn’t think he ever wanted to see that side of the house ever again.  They weren’t about to…well… _clean_ it… No.  He couldn’t.  None of them could.  So that just left Keith’s room and Lance’s, and Keith’s was closer to Pidge’s.  So here they stayed.  And Lance wasn’t leaving him here on his own, either, because he was pretty sure neither of them wanted to be alone right now.

So the only thing left to do was keep on talking.

“They seemed to be doing pretty good when we last left them,” Lance answered his own question from before, as it was only met with silence otherwise, although he really couldn’t think of too much to say on the subject himself.  “Like, they looked like they do when they, umm, you know, get like that?  Hey!” He perked up with a sudden idea.  “Do you think maybe, when they’re done, they can do this on anybody?  Like us, too?  I think they could have everyone down, and we can like, track each other’s quintessence?  I don’t know, it’d be cool.  Just think, we could be anywhere in the country, and boom!  There we are, a blinking red dot or something on the map.  We could always find each other, and since only we know how to do it, we’ll be safe.  Because…no one else can.”

He paused for a moment, then opted to go on with it, right after another drop flung with expert accuracy to where the wall met a bookshelf corner.  “Hey, so do you think, maybe, when we get hurt, our quintessence level drops?  Does it work like that?  I mean, it’s a life force, right?  They had something like it in this anime I watched.  Their life force worked like a health bar.  And other people had these devices that could read it, so you knew if the force of your teammate was low.  Maybe, if it works like that, Pidge and Hunk could make a reader just like it.  They could…”

Lance trailed off as found himself snatched in the thought that followed.  They could…find out if Shiro and Allura were still alive?  No, no, he couldn’t think like that.  They could just, find out how they were.  How they were doing.  That’s it.  They were still alive.  Somewhere, out there, he _knew_ they were alive.  And the four of them were going to rescue them.  End of story.  But perhaps, what if they _were_ doing badly?  Would their quintessence force be weak?  Could they still find them that way?  What if Pidge and Hunk figured it out but then looked and found nothing…

No, no.  He wasn’t thinking like this.  He wasn’t supposed to be the pessimistic one.  He caught his thoughts together and looked up again, now feeling Keith’s gaze against the back of his head as his brother must have turned to the side to look at him.  He tried to recollect where he was before the pause.  “So…yeah.  I think…umm…it could happen.  I mean, I don’t know, but…yeah.”

He paused in his stammering, trying to figure out what to say next, but he was startled by an actual response containing Keith’s first words since, well, at least the past half hour.  His voice was calm and reserved, void of the spark of excitement but at least present with a semblance of either hope or reassurance.  “They’ll find them.”

Yeah.  Yeah, he was right.  They would find them.  He knew that.  But just hearing their identities spoken of out loud even in pronoun form was enough to send everything rushing back.  He couldn’t help it.  Not anymore.  He knew good and well whose blood it might be staining their carpet a mere one floor below them right now.  And he hated it, but it hurt just to _think_ about it.  But in reality, they were all he could actually think about.

 “Yeah, I know,” Lance stared down the floor as he felt his throat start to swell up tight.  It might be the lack of food or sleep talking right now, but now that he started, he wasn’t sure he could stop.  Former emotional restraint eluded him. 

“But it’s just…you know, I _don’t_ know.  We don’t know where they are!  Heck, we don’t even know who took them, or why!” he gestured angrily at the wall in front of him, apparently accusing it of all that went wrong.  “I mean, was it because of who they were, or something they did?  What if it’s about _us_?  This couldn’t all be our faults, could it?  We all know we’re kind of a secret – our powers, anyways.  But Shiro and Allura never told on us.  Not even the Garrison.  Do you ever think, maybe they were supposed to?  I don’t know.   But now this happened, and I just think…could we be the reason?  _Somebody_ wanted _something_ when they came here.  And now…are they even alive?”

The question hung in the air for more than a few seconds.  Lance stared at the ground and then the wall and kind of hated himself for dragging them both with his speech when he really should have been trying to cheer things up.  But gosh, what was there left to cheer?  Shiro and Allura might be dead.  Not only were they two people on the line here, they were family and also the only parents the four of them ever knew.  And he probably forgot to be thankful for having them before.  They could have been scattered in orphanages or foster homes somewhere, but they weren’t.  They could have somehow been stuck at the Garrison base forever, but they weren’t.  They could have been in containment somewhere, maybe at the Garrison, quarantined and prodded on account of their enemy-granted powers, but they weren’t. 

Allura and Shiro were the reason why.  But now they might be gone, and he’ll never get the chance to thank them for it.

The moment of silence dragged on.  Lance once again sought comfort from the very reason for their troubles, and he telepathically lifted the whole remaining mass of water from the glass, only to violently slam it back down in there again with the exception of a few restless drops splashing out over the sides.  He hated sitting here.  He hated not being able to do anything.  He was the one who wanted to take out after them right when it happened, but he had to admit that it was the logical approach that won it in the end.  But then, what if they were too late?  But of course, there was nothing he could do about it.  Not now.  He felt trapped and useless sitting here.  But he had to admit, he knew the feeling was mutual.

After so many seconds of nothing, he heard Keith let out a deep sigh behind him.  He instinctively turned and craned his neck upwards to see his brother sitting there with his gaze still staring at nothing and his face obscured by limply hanging locks of hair.  He waited a second before speaking.  “You might be right, Lance.  They could already be gone.”

Lance felt his heart sink like a boulder in the ocean.  He really did just make things worse, didn’t he?

“But that won’t stop us from trying.”

It might have been a stoic statement, but Keith said it so steady and so set with determination that Lance couldn’t help but find hope in it.  And from Keith, of all places?  Yep, looks like it.  Lance smiled almost just to himself and muscled out a short laugh.  “Yeah, you’re right about that!” he agreed before turning to a more stoic tone himself.  “Yeah, they can’t stop us from trying, that’s for sure.  Not if there’s a chance.”  There was always a chance.  And at this, he decided to let himself smile again.  “And whoever it is, they won’t know who hit them, right?  They’ll regret messing with _this_ family, am I right?”

He felt Keith shrug behind him.  “I guess.”

At this reaction, Lance let out a big, hearty ‘pshaw’.  “Pfft, don’t sell yourself short, man.  We all took karate classes way back when.  Before the dojo closed down, anyways.  But _you_ were top of the class.  And of course, I wasn’t so bad myself,” Lance finished with a cocky grin and fingers splayed towards his own chest.

“I was eight,” Keith countered matter-of-factly, but Lance would have none of that.  Not now that he had his groove back, anyhow.

“Oh, come on, it _counts_!  You start early, I think that’s what Shiro said.  So we’re prepared!  And besides,” yes, he think he felt bold enough to bring this up now, “you can’t deny that our powers are an advantage too.  And even if they know about our quintessence, it’s not like they know exactly _what_ we can do with it.  But you have to admit: this does _technically_ make us superheroes,” Lance gave off his own best shot at the matter-of-fact tone with that.

To his pleasant surprise, he heard Keith give off broken laughter.  “Oh my gosh, Lance…”

Lance got up off of the floor and turned to the bed in standing position and saw Keith hanging his head in his hands.  “Oh, you don’t believe me, now?” he spoke in mock indignation.  He then responded by taking out the liquid from the long-beleaguered glass of water and finally laying it to rest right on Keith’s face.

“Hey!”

As Keith turned back towards him, Lance was already assuming defensive stance, looking at him from the side with legs apart and hands ready at the waist.  “Alright Keith, we’re putting those skills to the test.  You and me are sparring.  Right now.”

“Lance. We can’t…”

Lance cut him short by taking into possession the first other source of water he found, which was Keith’s water bottle sitting on his desk, now hanging in the air above his head in entire enclosed water bottle form.

Keith quickly knocked the bottle out of the air and let it fall to the floor.  At this he too sprang up and got off the bed in defensive stance, though still in protest.  “We don’t have room to…”

Lance lunged for him with a cut to the side and Keith dodged right before the blow could land.  He too went at him straight, and Lance blocked him with his hand.  Then Lance went for him again…then missed and crashed right into Keith’s desk.

Lance raise himself up again with his gut lurching from the blow.  “Lance, are you okay?” Keith asked with eyes wide and Lance nodded. 

“Let’s do that again.”

The two continued at it for at least five minutes.  The furniture in the room served as obstacles, yes, but Lance would insist that just made it a better challenge.  He was already too proud of his idea to be bothered by its shortcomings, because right now, they each thought of nothing.  They punched and swiped and kicked and knocked books off of the shelf and let themselves be engrossed by nothing else.  It was just like old times, really.  Granted, he and Keith would fight the most out of anybody usually for reasons other than just ‘sparring’, but still.  It felt like action.  And doing something.  And, somehow, like being alive.

Lance landed a blow (more like a shove) on Keith is just the right place to send him stumbling backwards into the book shelf, where his head looked to collide violently with the edge of the top shelf.  Lance stopped as it was now his turn to be concerned, and Keith just rubbed his head with a groan.

“You alright?” he asked.

Keith sighed.  “Yep.”

“Maybe…we could take this to the hallway?  I mean, if you want to.  You _do_ need a whole lot of practice, after all,” Lance added jestingly.

Keith smiled back.  “Hey, _you’re_ the one who needs practicing.  And yeah, the hallway.  We’ll do that.”

Lance grinned from ear to ear and let the lines of trouble fall and remain where he once sat.  He gestured dramatically to the door.  “Lead the way, Sensei.”

 

* * *

 

 

Pidge Akari Altea had always been proud of her name.  It was something that was hers.  You couldn’t change it; you couldn’t take it away.  You could try, or you could say you did, but in the end, she was the only one who had any choice over that.  She got to choose who she was.  Granted, the name was something given to her, but by accepting it, it was her own.  She knew, most likely, that she would have had a different name some time many years ago.  It would have been complete with first, middle, and last, thought through and maybe even packed with its own spread of ideas, visions, and hopes, but she never knew it.  And really, she didn’t mind.  Some people in her place would want to know.  They would want to know where they came from.  They would want to know who their ‘real parents’ were.  She once heard some philosopher wanna-be on TV talk about heritage and blood and then say so sure of himself that ‘if you don’t know who you are, you don’t know where you’re going’, but she scoffed at that and turned it off.  But truth was, he was right about that last part.  She knew exactly who she was.  She was Pidge Atari Altea.  And this is where she belonged.

Having her name was one of the few precious advantages Pidge had to being the youngest in the family.  Because she knew the story.  Years ago, when Allura took them in, her brothers had remembered their names.  They were old enough to still know, even though they hadn’t remembered much else about their past or birth parents or pretty much anything else besides that stupid lab.  None of them did.  As far as they knew, their existence was started in a white room, being poked at, tested, prodded.  But the rest of them still somehow knew their names, the ones that must have come from wherever they came from, whatever parents happened to birth them.  But Pidge was different.  She wasn’t talking yet, from what they told her, and as such, had no idea of her name.  By all means, she was a blank slate.  New to the world.  She had no name, so they gave her one.  A nickname, they said it was.  It was only a nickname, but it stuck, and that made it even better.  Pidge could not help but laugh at the story later, how she got a stuffed pigeon as a namesake because that’s what her three-year-old self stuck on to.  But she loved it.  Because, seriously, who _else_ would have a story like that? 

So, that was the kicker.  That’s what really made this special.  Before they found her, she had no name.  They took her in, and then she did.  So, it made a natural conclusion that as far as she’s concerned, that’s where her life started, some twelve years ago in a makeshift playpen on a Garrison base.  She was not nothing; she was Pidge.  And soon after that, Allura brought her home, and as new legal guardian essentially gave them all her last name – Altea.  So thus, she was now Pidge Altea.  Part of the family.  And with that, everything else for sure to be erased for good.  She was herself and she was Altea.  Wondrously, it excluded Zarkon and Haggar and the lab entirely.  That part just didn’t happen.  It had no importance to Pidge Altea, because she belonged to something else.  Something new and better.  It also meant that whatever occurred in her life before the lab never took place, either – not her old home, not her birth parents.  They happened, yes, but that meant nothing to Pidge.  Yeah, sometimes she wondered.  Who wouldn’t wonder who they were?  But that didn’t change the fact that they were faceless.  There could be no attachment; they weren’t here.  Good or bad, they held no sway over who she was for the past twelve years.  And going back there was pointless.  This was her family now.  This had always been her family.  Pidge Altea knew no other.

For this, Pidge Altea was special.  It had no past, no regrets.  It only belonged to the now.  And it only connected her to those right now she cared about, the two she called ‘parents’.  But it was also her own, and she could define it. Her middle name, Akari, came later, and that one was totally hers.  In her papers or whatever, she technically didn’t have an official middle name, but one day in second grade they had to take a standardized test and write out their _full_ name, so little Pidge panicked.  Desperate for a name that was complete, she took the first thing she saw – the brand name on the guy’s t-shirt in front of her.  The t-shirt was for _Atari_ , specifically, the video game console, but one letter change and bang!  It was her own.  Sure, you could say that the end product, Akari, was about as dumb as ‘Pidge’, but she didn’t give a flying flip about none of that, because it was still _hers_.  But it seemed like destiny, because later on she looked it up and found that Akari was actually a Japanese word, meaning “light” or “glimmer.”  This made it even better, because Shiro’s family was Japanese.  Which meant she was now Akari Altea.  One part Shiro, one part Allura.  So now, it was like she had a piece of both of them, but in a way that was still entirely her own.  Without even knowing it, she chose to make them both part of her name.

Pidge Akari Altea.  Of course Pidge never had a problem with it.  From an early age, she loved it.  And those kids who made fun of it at school way back when could suck it.  She never cared about what they said, because she was her own.  No one could take her name from her.  No one.  Once she accepted it, it was hers.  She chose her identity.  She chose the people she wanted to be part of it.  If they took her away today and she was stuck somewhere, alone in another place called home, it wouldn’t be.  She still had her real family with her.  Always.  She was glad she didn’t remember.  She was glad nothing past the lab was ever made known to her.  She didn’t need a past.  She didn’t need an origin.  In fact, she had one, it just didn’t start at birth.  It belonged, rather, to the now.  Whatever she did remember of the past, that accursed lab they came from, was best left forgotten – she _wanted_ to forget it.  Whatever she had that was technically a result of it wasn’t.  It was hers now.  It just was and always is.  That’s the way it could be for all of them.

And until now, that was fine.  Until now, they could all just forget and move on and everything would be fine and peachy.  Who needs a past?  Who needs an origin?  If you didn’t acknowledge it, it wasn’t there.  How could something you didn’t know have hold over you?  It had no power over your memory.  It couldn’t bring harm to your mind.  You were master of your own mind.  And that was still true.  At least, she thought it was true.  They told her it could be true.  She woke up one night, in the middle of the night, and she saw it.  Crazed, mocking eyes and long, long needles.  The smell of rancid, acidic chemcials and she didn’t know what it was, she still doesn’t even know what that was.  Pain in her arms, her legs, her chest – were you supposed to feel pain in a dream? – and rising spread of this putrid color, reaching from her fingertips to her neck, taking over her, taking control of her body, and she screamed.  And then Allura was there.  She held her in her arms, rocking back and forth, speaking softly.  She doesn’t remember what she said, exactly.  She was five, then, maybe.  The same dream happened several times.  But she told her it was okay.  Pidge remembers resisting at first.  Allura’s hair was long and white, just like the woman it the dream, and that wasn’t normal, so in the middle of the night that was enough to scare her, too.  To pull away.  But she told her it was okay.  They’re not here anymore.  You’re safe.  They can’t control you anymore.

And they didn’t.  She really, really believed they didn’t.  And yet, here she was.

Oh, stupid.  So, so stupid.  Right here, right now, she laughed at herself.  She laughed bitterly and lifted up weary eyes cracked with all the pressure of a night lost.  She wasn’t quite sure whether or not she laughed out loud, but it didn’t matter.  No matter what happened here, it was already over.  They found her.  They found all of them.  Couldn’t they see it?  It was all over now.  As long as they were in the past, they couldn’t hold power over them anymore.  They didn’t exist.  They could be killed merely with a lost memory.  But now they were _here_.  No, they didn’t know who the current ‘they’ was.  They don’t know who broke in here and took them.  But they knew the ‘they’ of the past – Zarkon.  And Haggar.  And whoever else was with them.  They came back.  They may not be here, but what they did to them?  It made them a target.  It made them ‘special’.  It denied them all a normal life.  If this was truth, if this was their new reality, then the past twelve years were nothing but a joke.  A sick, cruel joke.  A tease.

Pidge hung her head over her computer and some part of her reminded her again she was hungry.  What time was it?  Ack, it didn’t matter.  Time didn’t matter in times like this.  After all, she was no stranger to lack of sleep.  Not that this was any comparison.  This wasn’t a school project.  It wasn’t even a personal project, although, ironically, it used to be.  But now, it was a project of life or death, and every second that ticked by gave more chance for the latter.  Which is why she had to work like mad and just hope there was something out there worth saving.  Hope they could find them.  Hope that, maybe, they could be back together and hold on to what they had for a moment before they came back and tore them apart and snatched away their lives again.  Because, right now, they had the power.  They held control.  Those mocking eyes glared at her again, stared down into her soul, taunting her: did you really think I wouldn’t be back?  Did you really think you could be free?

“Pidge?”

Reality broke through in the form of Hunk’s concerned voice, and Pidge Akari Altea came back and looked up to realize that her elbows were on the keys and her page of code was now concluded with a full seven lines of pure jargon.  She leaned back and held down the backspace key, figuring that display was why Hunk was staring at her right now.  That, or she really did laugh out loud.

He kept looking at her.  “I’m fine,” she spat out harshly, knowing Hunk well enough to already feel the question he wanted to ask in his gaze.  And no, she didn’t want to talk about it.  The weight of the strain from this night alone might be enough to make her question her own sanity, but she was fine.  Good enough to work.  That was all they needed to do.

“Are you sure?”

Hunk was so concerned and so present right now, it made Pidge want to jump up and run away.  They may be working on this together, but she so wanted to be _alone_ right now.  But darn it, he wasn’t leaving.

“I’m fine, okay!?” she bit back at him faster than Varden on a housefly.  “We need to focus!  I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Sorry, you just, umm, fell asleep, and then…yeah, sorry.”

Pidge looked back to see Hunk sitting down and staring at his hands, head limp and gaze empty.  It made her feel bad, he just seemed so…broken.  Like the color somehow managed to wash clear out of his dark skin, and only sadness and grief remained.  He turned back without a word, and continued soldering wire onto their makeshift motherboard, the one for the transmission device that will hopefully communicate with the computer to read their signals.  Which was what her code was for. 

Pidge turned back to the code and tried to focus her mind on it, but already she still felt heavy from a few seconds earlier.  How may alterations did they have like that in this night alone?  She didn’t know.  She couldn’t even keep her head straight anymore.  She looked down at the time in the corner of her screen.  3:57.  It was even later than she thought.  It meant the night was almost gone by now.  Were they going fast enough?  Was this taking too much time.  They didn’t even know if it would work yet; they started building without testing.  A terrible practice, yes, but the chance seemed worth taking.  It was do it fast, or don’t do it at all.

She plugged on with what she had – typing, scanning, thinking.  Her mouse lingered over ‘compile’ and she finally pressed so she could see if this bit worked, at least.  Which meant the system would be loading for at least a couple of minutes.  About two minutes too many to think with.

She didn’t know what they were doing.  But they had to find them.  They just had to.  They were out there – she knew it.  But where they were, how they were, who took them, why, and what they wanted with them – all of them – this all was shrouded in mystery.  Pidge thought she had things figured out.  But she didn’t.  She thought she knew who their threats were.  But she couldn’t.  She also thought she knew where she belonged, but that was gone now.  She didn’t know who she was.  Maybe she never did.  At least, right now, it was like being sucked back into the past, torn away to that place where cold eyes stared at you and held you fast and determined to take away everything you ever loved.  It was the lab again, the place where she had no name.  She was nothing to them.  And now they were back.  They were coming for them, and there was nothing she or the rest of them could do about it.  Nothing to do, but wait for the final blow.

The compiling finished.  Error at line 43.  She looked back, expecting something there, only to find she just missed a stupid semicolon and darn it!  She couldn’t think straight anymore!  She didn’t have time to be making mistakes like this!  She just…had to…something.  Do better.  Just do better.  Fix herself.

She leaned back and let her chair roll a couple of inches away.  She stared at the screen, then closed her eyes, letting out a tight breath and reining what remained back together. 

“Sorry, Hunk,” she spoke softly, without warning even on her own mind’s part.  It just seemed like the thing to say at the moment.  She took another breath and thrummed the fingers of her hands together.  She was no stranger to working all night through.  But this time, she wasn’t so sure she could handle it.

“It’s okay,” he mumbled back with perhaps just a hint of surprise.  Pidge pictured his questioning eyes and busy hands frozen where they stood, but she didn’t look up.  She kept her head down and just kept talking.  Come to think of it, she probably did give that crazed laugh out loud a minute ago.  Maybe she really _was_ losing it.

“I didn’t mean it,” she mumbled too, not exactly sure which part or which incident she was apologizing for but figuring she better just cover the whole dang thing.  She paused for a moment, then reached for a loose spring for her hands to fiddle with.  “Did you ever wonder, in all these years, if our lives were just a lie?” she looked up and stared at the computer screen that promised not a single answer.  “I mean, things all this time…it was too good.  With what happened to us as kids?” she sighed, squeezed down on the spring, then let it loose again.  “We had to know they would have come back.  Something would have happened.  We couldn’t be…I don’t know.  It couldn’t be real.”

Pidge heard the rustling of wires.  Hunk took a deep breath, and then a pause.  “Well…yeah, I guess so.  I would never have expected _this_ to happen, but I mean, sure, I probably did.”

“I didn’t.”  She mused on the fact shortly and lifted up her head to look at him, now staring back at her curious and, well, probably surprised.  She laughed.  “What, you would have expected that, huh?  Me, the conspiracy theorist.  Yeah, I know that’s what you thought.  But no.  No, I didn’t actually expect it.  Not like this.  I knew something could happen.  But I didn’t think…” she paused, and chewed over the weight.  What _did_ she think?  What did it mean?  “…I didn’t think they would win.  That they would be able to do anything, or that they could ever actually take over and… _control_ us like this.”

“But…they don’t,” Hunk appeared confused.

“Yeah?  Who’s calling the shots?” Pidge challenged back, fully aware of her voice rising and the pessimism encroaching, but she wasn’t even going to fight it.  “Who is it?  They’re fighting; we’re reacting – whoever they are.  It doesn’t matter anymore.  We have something they want; they won’t stop until they have it.  Isn’t that what happened to Shiro and Allura?  The moment they changed, they became an asset.  A tool.  They were something special, and the Garrison wanted them for that.  And someone out there still wants them.  And now we’re the same.”

Voice broke into silence for a few seconds; Pidge stared seemingly mesmerized, but with her mind on anything but the screen, and Hunk rustled in his seat.  “I don’t know, Pidge,” he answered with the weariness of a lost night and the shear strain of everything else fixed into his voice.  “This is really hard, on all of us.  But we’ll find them, and then…we’ll figure something out.  We’ll know it when we get there.”

Pidge leaned back, and found that the vigor had left her voice.  She felt her eyes glaze as if transfixed by nothing more than her thoughts.  There was nothing left but to ponder everything.  “But, do you think…maybe it’s not just us?” she mused and scratched her glasses against her head.  “I mean, would it still be this way if we were ‘normal’?  Just think about it.  No matter where you go, who you are, someone wants something from you,” her eyes drifted from the screen to the ceiling, hands going back to pressing the spring tight with all the fury of a sleepless night.  “Something you are or something you do.  It’s like…Shiro and Allura’s story.  Before anything even happened, the government wanted them to do something for them.  Because…it was their job, I guess.  But that’s always how it works.  You’re not your own.  Everyone wants something.  Your abilities, your heart, your brain.  Some stupid war or stupid project or…”

She trailed off and looked at Hunk again, who had now gone from surprised to utterly bewildered.  Yeah, she had definitely gone crazy.  She’s talking philosophy in the middle of the night like that’s the only thing that can solve anything.  Or maybe she’s just upset that this is the one thing she _can’t_ solve.  But she chewed it over still.  She wondered.  Who was she really?  “They call the shots, Hunk.  They act; we react.  They tell us to do something; we do it or we don’t.  We make choices because of them.  Because someone else started it.  I get that now.  But…Hunk, how do we _stop_?”

The question hung in the air, and it remained unanswered.  She didn’t expect an answer.  She lowered her eyes, laid aside the spring, longed for her hands to just return to the keyboard and forget about this.  But there was still one more thing.  “Hunk, I don’t even know my real name.  I didn’t remember it.”

The spring left her hands and rolled back onto the desk.  She can’t believe she said that.  She was _never_ bothered by that.  But right now, it was like she was, like some part of her went back to that.  Because no matter what she did, and who or what she chose to be part of her identity, Pidge Atari Altea still was and always will be partially a creation made by _them_.  No matter how much she protested, they were still a part of who she was and how she ended up here.  If it weren’t for them, she would never have been taken away from where she was, be it a home or the streets or an orphanage.  She would never have known Shiro or Allura, or Hunk, Lance and Keith.  It never would have happened.  And even if she liked what happened in the end, it still meant they were a part of it.  They wrote her origin story.  They were the reason she had vines draped across her windows and overgrown potted plants sprawling about everywhere.  She couldn’t erase them.  They were right here.  They took away her first identity, the one she never knew, and they gave her a new one.  She may have made it in part, but not all of it.  She couldn’t.

She hated it they had that on her.  On all of them.  But she would never even know what she lost; she was here now.

Silence reigned once again.  Pidge wouldn’t blame Hunk if he had nothing he wanted to say to that.  He might think she was already totally off and over the edge of that cliff and soaring into the water moccasin-infested lake below.  Well, he would never _say_ that, but he might think it.  Maybe.  Still, he might have something kind and encouraging or something to say (which she wasn’t in the mood for, mind you, but she’ll take it).  That would be expected.  But instead, she was surprised.  Because after a few minutes of silence, he laughed.  It was a tired, broken laugh, chopped up in something more like a weary convulsion, but it was still a laugh.  She whipped her head back around and stared at him, probably glaringly, because, was he _serious_ right now!?  She was about to retort, but she didn’t even know what to say.  She didn’t expect it of him, of all people.  Then again, she supposed she had the same reaction to herself a few minutes earlier, but still.

“I’m sorry,” Hunk started, breathing heavy now and rubbing his eyes.  “I’m sorry, Pidge, I get it.  Really, I do.  I was just trying to think about it and then…” his gaze went upwards at a blank stare to the corner, eyes cracked and worn and at what looked like a disconnect from his mind.  In this moment, Pidge decided she probably gave herself too much credit.  The insanity was mutual.

“I have a question,” he regained his voice and looked back at her.  “Who’s ‘they’?”

Pidge’s head recoiled back a bit, and she eyed him flabbergasted that he would think such a thing was even important.  “Who’s ‘they’?” she repeated incredulously.  Well, that was a weird question to ask.  “You know, _all_ of them.  Zarkon, Haggar, the Garrison, whatever knucklehead took our parents, maybe the rest of the government, I don’t know – _them_!” She paused for a moment to rest her case.  “Why?”

Hunk shrugged.  “Well, I don’t know, you just keep throwing out ‘they’ and ‘everyone’ all the time.  It’s kind of general.  Like…it’s all of society.”

She looked at him with her best dead-panned gaze.  “It kind of is.”

Hunk shook his head.  “No, not really,” he paused as if recollecting what he wanted to say.  The heel of his hand went back up to rub his eye, which had probably happened a few times this night, considering the grease stain under the other one.  “I mean, it’s them; whoever we’re fighting.”  He shook his head again, “It’s not everyone.”

Pidge couldn’t help it but to scoff at that idea.  “Yeah, sure,” she droned.  “I’m sorry, I get being optimistic.  Really.  But right now, who _aren’t_ we fighting?”

Hunk just shrugged again, but the answer came casual and easy.  “Each other.”

“Well…” Well, sheesh, Hunk, was that it!?  Forgive her for calling that answer ‘sappy’, but...yes, it was.  “…yeah…” But she couldn’t deny it.  Darn it, she couldn’t deny it at all.  Family was important, yes.  She’d be lying through her teeth if she said her brothers didn’t mean anything to her.  Heck, they were everything.  So were Shiro and Allura.  But how was that even relevant right now?  How did it fix anything?  Sorry, Saturday morning TV shows, you couldn’t just sprinkle ‘power of friendship and family’ all over everything like pixie dust and expect your problems to go away.  It didn’t happen like that.

She shook her head slowly and regained her words.  “Yes, that’s true.  But I don’t know how…” she was going to call him out.  She was going to say that wasn’t relevant at all, but somehow, she just didn’t have the guts.  Not when she realized Hunk had to be going through the same kind of pain she was.  So instead, she just smiled, and laughed it off with a sideways glance at their mutual creation, the transmission device that would solve their problems and bring everybody back together again.  “Well, I guess it’s the four of us against the world then, isn’t it?”

Hunk gave a sideways shrug with a glazed look that betrayed a panicked confliction at how much of that statement he wanted to agree with right now.  Maybe not against the _whole_ world, considering his newfound aversion to pronoun-based generalizations.  She didn’t know.  But she supposed both of them were probably too tired to figure that out properly right now.  So he just agreed.  “Hey, what’s family for, right?”

They paused for a moment, and after several seconds of complete inaction he turned back quickly to his work.  Pidge turned back to the computer, too, and suddenly completely forgot what she was doing.  Or saying.  It was still there, though; there like a pile of bricks on her chest.  She wished she could have called their talk right then encouraging, but sheesh, how was she to know?  It’s 4AM.  She needed coffee.  Or food.  Or answers.  Or sleep.  One of those.  Pfft, screw sleep.  She just needed coffee.  But there was still no way in heaven or earth she was going _downstairs_ to get some.

She heard Hunk clear his throat abruptly from across the room, and so for the moment being she obediently swiveled her chair back to him in mild expectation.  His gaze was set on the wall—awkwardly, one might add—and he continued.  “So…yeah.  The wiring’s in place now.” His focus shifted back to the task ahead, though his tone betrayed hints otherwise.  “The internal CPU should be able to communicate to the computer.”

Pidge nodded abruptly, and let out that internal breath in relief.  Yes, the project.  She could do the project.  In comparison to life, nuclear physics were a piece of cake.  Way easier to figure out.  “Yeah, my code’s about ready to be downloaded, then.” She hit the ‘compile’ button once more, and in what seemed much quicker fashion than last time, it cleared. 

Releasing a good deep breath for no reason whatsoever, she finally loaded the code on a floppy drive and brought it over to the transmitter.  She plugged it in herself and let her presence grind against the silence now, Hunk still sitting there inches away, but neither had anything left to say.  And Pidge knew it was her fault that got them like this.  But whatever.  She just…yeah, whatever.

Suddenly, Hunk slapped his hands upon his thighs and starting glancing across various ends of the room.  “Hey, you know, we need a receiver now,” he continued on in a forced chipper fashion (forced, because Pidge knew his vocal tones anywhere – he’s her brother, darn it).  He turned to her.  “Weird question: you wouldn’t by any chance have, like, a dish…?”

At this, Pidge cocked her gaze back to him and could not suppress the grin that followed.  “You doubt me?  Yeah, I got one in my closet over there – left side,” she pointed, and he went for it.  A few loud sounds of digging later and he had heaved out this hefty looking satellite dish with “Dish Network” conspicuously sprawled across its face.  Or, at least, conspicuous for a house with cable.  She saw him take it out and turn it over, cocked wonderment in his eyes, so Pidge just continued: “Yeah, it’s a satellite dish, but it should work fine.  What we’re receiving is close enough.  The quintessence ripples have a surprisingly lot of similarities to electromagnetic radiation, you know.”

“I’m not even going to question how you got this.”

Hunk was smiling, so she smiled too, with that glorious hint of mischievousness.  She answered anyways: “Poker game.” She grinned in self-satisfaction, letting her mind graze back to that memory.  Underestimate her not, Jackson Harper.  Underestimate her not.

Hunk laughed and brought the hardware over.  “Well, I think it’ll work fine.”

The two continued working, and Pidge let out a sigh as she maintained a glimmer of a smile.  They were actually making progress here.  Pidge was always a sucker for that feeling you got when some project was taking form and working, and you could look at it with pride and say _you did that_.  This was her project—no, it was _theirs_.  And it was going to work beautifully, and it was going to get Shiro and Allura back.  It had to.  It was strange and new, yes, but right now, she at least had confidence this would work.

“Hey, Pidge?”

Pidge was broken out of her reverie by Hunk once more, and she whipped her head around, dark golden hair falling into her glasses.  “Yeah?”

Hunk looked hesitant, at first, like his words were now something to be chewed and stewed over, crafted together until they were just right.  “It may not mean much, I get it, but…for the record?  I think your name’s pretty great.”

At a total loss of what to say, Pidge found herself just staring back at him until Hunk recovered himself enough to jerkily break gaze and turn back to what he was doing.  Pidge Atari Altea went back as well, slowly, where her gaze now rested on the computer screen in its DOS glory with the code almost loaded.  It was funny…Hunk still went about this as corny as ever, but somehow, it meant something anyways.  Maybe it was because she said what she did without thinking about it, and needed a reaction for closure.  She had never really talked about it before – how she felt about her name.  It was something private, like a secret of some sort; it was all hers and hers alone.  So he didn’t know how she felt.  He didn’t know she relished in it all these years, or, at least, thought she did.  She liked it until now, at least, when she remembered it had a problem.  When she remembered how close to ‘them’ they really were.  But…it was still her name.  It was hers.  And right now, Hunk probably didn’t understand, really.  He probably just said that to make her feel better, because that was just the best way to.  But at least he tried.  That meant something.

Pidge stared at the machine again, and her eyes narrowed with fervor.  This was it.  This was what they were going to use, to get their family back.  She knew know, what this meant.  She knew they were being forced to react.  She knew these creeps who took their parents had power over them, that they were calling the shots.  They had the upper hand.  But not for long.  No, no…they couldn’t expect this.  Just like that man she and Keith chased in the woods all those years ago, they wouldn’t expect the Alteas to fight back.  This, at least, she had.  She had the power to choose _how_ she would react.  And to decide who she was. 

Slowly, surely, steadily, Pidge Atari Altea gained a gleam in her eye, craftily hidden underneath her glasses.  So what, then?  They weren’t lying down.  They weren’t running away.  They were running _towards_ them.  They got to decide that.  She got to decide that.  So what if they created her?  So what if they were the reason she was sitting here, right now, the power of quintessence at her fingertips?  So what if they were beginning?  After all, right here, she knew the end.  They were going after them, and they were going to make them pay…for everything.  So then, so what if they made them?

It would be their mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh, I rewrote Pidge's scene so many times, it's not even funny. Just kidding, it is. But I just wanted to get it right, you know? Interestingly, I actually had that first part written already soon after I started this thing way long ago. So I have to give a shout-out; it came with some inspiration from Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon (which I had just read at that time). Great book. Has a lot on identity, and names. It feeds into the fact that I absolutely love names and relished the chance to exploit Pidge's. So yeah. That was fun. This whole chapter was kind of a transitional scene, the nest chapter starts the next "act" of the story, you could say. But this right here, along with other things, is definitely a theme I'd want to explore.


	6. Four Hundred Miles of Nothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They are ready, and they are determined. Time for a road trip, ya'll!

“So…we got the map?”

“Check.”

“Flashlight?”

“Check.”

“First Aid?”

“Uh, you serious?  That was the first thing I got!  And _you_ kept adding on to it?  Now, we got enough antiseptic to bathe a freakin’ rhinoceros!”

“Uh, okay, what about food?”

“Everything we had,” Pidge responded with additional gravity.  She and Hunk were hovering now about the trunk of the old 1986 Ford Country Squire station wagon, otherwise known as Shiro’s car, running through everything they needed before taking off.  Meanwhile, Lance mulled about in the background doing some weird skip-hop pacing thing with unnecessary hand movements, while Keith stood battling similar feelings with less accompanying motion. 

“So we’re good, right?  We’re leaving?  Come on, we’ve got everything!  It’s time to fight bad guys!” Lance expressed his impatience strongly.  “We’re burning daylight!”

“Lance, it’s already dark,” Keith was inclined to point out.

“Oh, right.”

May 2, 10:32 PM.  That would be the precise time.  It’s been over a day since they first came home to find Shiro and Allura missing, and that’s how long it took for Pidge and Hunk to finish their invention to find them.  Which, actually, was really impressive.  Keith knew it had to be a crazy schedule for the two of them, but for the past 26 hours, there was little he and Lance could do to help besides just make sure they eat.  Which, believe him, was hard.  Well, not as hard for Hunk.  But practically impossible for Pidge, Miss ‘your-breathing-is-interrupting-me-please-leave’ Altea herself.

“Okay, we’re good!  I have the coordinates; we have everything we need,” Pidge announced, her glasses glinting in the moonlight and her gaze set on the car.

Hunk, however, took another look back to the house.  “Are you sure everything will be fine while we’re gone, though?  I mean, we’re leaving behind Oro, and Red, and Azula, and the chickens…”

“It’ll be fine.  We won’t be gone long,” Pidge assured readily.  “If the coordinates are right, we got a ten hour drive to the mountains.”  The mountains of Montana, specifically.  The device located them just west of the town of Anaconda.  “So, we have one day worth of driving there and back, and probably one day of actually finding them.  That’s two days.  Three tops.  We left enough food out for them to be good until then.”

Somehow, Keith was a little less optimistic about that prospect than she was.  Or, at least, than she sounded.  Knowing her, her thoughts might still have a little more taken into account, but if she thought this was the only way they could think about it, she might be right.  They had no choice now.  Still, the idea they could go in to wherever they’re going, waltz in, leave with Shiro and Allura, and just drive home?  Only if they were really, _really_ lucky.  And, given the track record, they probably weren’t.

“Besides, we got Matt, remember?  I left him a note.”

At this, Keith’s eyes blasted open as if he just got sucker-punched with shock.   “You what!?”

“Relax.  It’s coded _and_ in invisible ink, obviously,” she smirked back at him coyly before turning a little more serious.  “But, you see, someone will figure out we’re gone.  It’s bound to happen.  I’m hoping it’s him or Shay, since let’s be honest—they’re the only ones who’ll bother to stop by and see.  And…they’ll _see_.  A lot.  So, I let him know that we were going.  I left it pretty vague, but it’ll get the point across, I’m sure.  At least they’ll get it that we’re not dead, and maybe, hopefully, cover for us until we get back.”  With this, she dramatically swung open the passenger door of the car and smiled again.  “We’ll get back, I’m sure.  By the way, I call shotgun.”

“Wha-wait!” Lance recoiled in grave offense.  “That doesn’t count!  You can’t call shotgun when you’re already touching the door!  Five feet from the car _at least_ , that’s the rule!”

“Oops, don’t care.”

Lance grumbled as he climbed into the back seat of the car.  Hunk offered a consoling hand to Keith’s shoulder as he walked by.  “Well, looks like you’re driving.  Sorry it’s such a long way.  And at night, too.”

“No, it’s fine,” Keith shrugged, honestly not even having really thought about that schematic to the ten-hour drive up until now.

He got into the driver’s seat of the station wagon and took a deep breath at the wheel.  Hunk, now in the back, offered additional support.  “So, just let us know if you get sleepy, okay?  We can help keep you awake.  That, or we could always stop for a little bit.”

But Keith took one glance at his passengers and that nervous energy pulsing between them, and he had no doubt.  “I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”

 

* * *

 

_“My loneliness, is killing me!  I must confess, I still believe…!”_

“Guys, if you don’t stop singing, I will fix this radio, and then throw it at you.”

Pidge shot her threat over a disembodied hunk of car radio, which sputtered and died about a hundred miles ago and now with its clanking massiveness it seemed to serve expressly as a distraction for Keith, who was still driving.  It was about 3AM now.  They had just passed Boise and now trekked on the absolute nothingness that was Highway 84, the headlights of the car the only thing illuminating the road at all in the pitch black sky.  But Keith, for one, was not feeling tired yet.

Lance was going on as if Pidge said nothing.  “When I’m not with you I lose my miiiinnndd…OW!  Hey!  What is this, a screw or something?”

“A bolt,” Pidge clipped.  “And I need it.  Hand it over,” she casually reached her hand towards the back seat, where Lance begrudgingly handed the radio part-turned-projectile back. 

“So, uh, how’s it coming?” Hunk arched his neck around Keith’s seat which he sat behind, where he couldn’t just quite see.

“Ugh, the transistors are all fried.  They just need to be replaced.  I got nothing,” Pidge grumbled through gritted teeth with the pained admission.  And it was probably true.  Keith could tell this hurt her pride, or else she wouldn’t have been going at it for thirty minutes.  But, the rackety 1986 station wagon probably proved too great a match this time.

Hunk was quick to respond with reassuring positivity.  “Hey, no problem!  We’ll just fix it when we get back home!”

In response, Pidge let out a loud _humph_ and rolled her head back.  “Yeah, sure.”  She sounded decidedly less enthusiastic, but went with it anyways.

Meanwhile, Keith really wished they would stop talking like that, since something like a knot hit his chest every time they said the word ‘home.’  How long were they really going to keep pretending everything was fine?  No one thought this was going to be easy.  The nervous, restless energy assaulting them all at 3AM was enough to say that.  However, he guessed ‘home’ was their goal, still.  But he really didn’t want to think about it.  He didn’t want to think about how this would end.  Which was why, perhaps, he was also grateful they kept talking like that.  They were all keeping each other distracted.  Without it, he’d be left to his own thoughts.

“Hey, guys,” Lance ventured casually as he gazed out the back seat window, just like he did when he brought up every other subject of conversation that night, which happened to be most of them.  “If quintessence is in everything, does that mean that it’s alive?  I mean, we’re alive, and we have quintessence, and you say that plants and rocks and stuff have quintessence, so does that mean it’s alive, too?”

“Um, define ‘alive,’” Pidge countered with the radio still in front of her face.

“Shoot, I don’t know, like…would it have feelings?  And thoughts and things?”

“Yeah, no.”

“Well technically, we don’t know,” Hunk offered leniently.  “To be honest, we kind of don’t know anything about what quintessence actually is.”

Lance looked back at him questioningly.  “Yeah, but haven’t you guys been, like, testing and doing science things on this?”

“We have data,” Pidge inserted fast.  “We know certain properties present or absent with varying levels of quintessence, and we can detect an energy signature.  But no, it’s not we can ‘see’ it.  It’s an amorphous force outside the physical plane of reality.  That’s impossible.  Well, not possible _yet_ , anyways,” she added with an extra gleam to her voice, because that was just her relationship with science.

“So you’re saying, it’s still possible.”

“Rocks don’t have thoughts, Lance.” Pidge’s voice resumed to deadpan.  “You need a brain for that.  It’s a scientific fact.”

“Well, yeah sure, okay.  What about feelings?” Lance persisted.  “I don’t know about you, but when I move water, it kind of feels alive, right?  Like, it’s moving with me, but kind of on its own at the same time?”

“Maybe, that’s just the energy?” Hunk mused.  “We’re kind of on the theory that our quintessence awakes the quintessence in other things.  It could be just that.  But honestly, I don’t know if I’ve ever really felt that way moving earth.  Keith, what about you?”

As happened every once in a while on this trip, Keith felt himself jolted into the conversation that he for the most part had just been content to listen to as he focused on driving.  He did think about it, though.  Did it feel alive?  He wasn’t sure what that even meant.  Maybe, it was the energy he felt with fire on his hands?  The power?  Like something that took root in him, a part of him, but kept exploding into something he didn’t know, but could only observe?  That part he didn’t like.  At least, not anymore.  He didn’t know how destructive he was as a kid, not like he did now.  And yet… “I guess?” he shrugged.  “It…does feel like that, in a way.  But, it’s fire, so, I guess that’s just how it is.”

A moment’s pause passed in thought, before Lance went ahead with a hearty shrug of his own.  “Yeah, that could be it.  Hey, it’s too bad these things don’t have thoughts, though.  You know how cool it would be if we got really good at our powers and just started talking to this stuff?”

Hunk shook his head decisively as he shuddered.  “Oh no.  No way.  Not a good idea.  You know I’ll have voices in my head everywhere I go, right?  That’d be too much.  And talking to rocks would be kind of weird, anyways.”

“Yeah, that is rough, buddy.  But I could just walk up to a river and ask how the road’s trip going; ‘how the weather upstream’, am I right?  Wouldn’t be nearly as fun as Pidge’s, though.  She could turn into the crazy old plant lady who lives in a cabin in the middle of nowhere and talks to her Venus Flytrap all day!”

“Um, excuse you?” Pidge cocked an eyebrow back.  “I’m going to be a crazy old plant lady who lives in the middle of nowhere talking to her _lizard_ all day, thank you very much.”

“Oh, yeah!” Hunk’s eyes widened in remembrance, although to his credit, this was technically his sixth ‘remembrance’ this night.  “I wonder how’s Varden doing?  He’s still in the terrarium, right?”

“Yes Hunk, I locked him in the terrarium,” Pidge assured dryly, yet again.  Although, since she let him wander around her room so much, it was a valid question.  “ _And_ I dumped enough grasshoppers in there to last ‘til doomsday.  Don’t worry; it’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, I know,” Hunk let out with a sighing breath.  “But you know I worry, okay?  I keep thinking about Oro.  What will she think now that we’re gone?  We can’t _tell_ them we’re gone.  The pets know bad things happened, too.  They’re scared.  And now it’s like we’ve abandoned them, and…yeah, that’s not good.”

“Naw man, I feel the same about Azula.  But we’ll be back soon, right?  Hey, how close are we, anyways?”

Keith sighed.  “Far.”

“About three hundred and sixty miles,” Pidge countered chipperly.  “So four hours, give or take.”

The back seat breathed a collective groaning sigh of exhaustion. 

“Hey, we couldn’t by any chance stop for a bathroom break anytime soon?” Hunk ventured to ask.

“Hunk,” Keith responded seriously.  “There isn’t anything on this road.”

“Yep, on one side, we got dry grass, one the other side, more dry grass,” Pidge commentated on the obvious surroundings.  “If we went far enough into the dry grass, I bet that’s where you’ll find a government base.  You could go to the bathroom where they keep the aliens.”

“Ha, I’ll wait,” Hunk rolled his eyes.

“We’ll be in another town eventually,” Keith added more reassuringly, unless, of course, you were willing to go in the dry grass.

“Yeah okay,” Lance geared himself up once more.  “But on that note, I got to bring it up.  Put it to a vote: do aliens exist or not?”

Keith could already feel Pidge gearing up and Hunk back there groaning.  He sure wasn’t touching this one.

 

* * *

 

 

 6:32 AM.  Still in Idaho.  Keith, finally, was getting tired of driving.  Generally, this wouldn’t have been a problem for him.  He didn’t mind doing the same thing for hours on end.  It was just the way he was wired.  Once he got focused, he didn’t need anything else.  How else would he have clocked all that time on the flight simulator, several hours in a single day?  However, even he had limits.  Eight hours in a station wagon on a forsaken road in a car full of people with jitters was seriously approaching it.

“Ha!  Ha ha!  There’s a truck!  There’s an ‘H’ on the license plate!” Lance let out a giddy victory screech.

“Oh man, I missed it,” Hunk groaned.  “Hmmm…The telephone pole wouldn’t count as an ‘I’, would it?”

“Nice try,” Pidge deadpanned from her state of radiating boredom.  She now, with reckless abandon, had her feet propped up on the dashboard, body slumped into her seat.  “Yeah, until we’re in billboard country again, I think you’re pretty much screwed on the alphabet game.  I got you something else: I spy…something purple.”

“Purple?” Lance echoed incredulously.  “What’s purple?” he looked back out the window at the illustrious site of pale green grass, dirt, and road.

“It’s that color you get when you mix blue with red,” Pidge replied with a smirk.

“Ha ha, very funny,” Lance countered, unamused.  “But serious, what in here is purple?  Is it something in the back?”

“Naw man, I was just messing with you.”

“You’re evil.”

“I know.” Pidge slumped back into her seat, satisfied.  A few more seconds passed in silence, no doubt spent peering down the road for some other car that might possess an ‘I’.  But Pidge, Keith noticed, started staring at the rearview.  She passed a few moments like that, and then, her eyes narrowed.

“Guys, how long has that car been behind us?”

Hunk looked confused.  “What car?”

“The black SUV.  See?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess.  We’ve been on 15 for a long time, though.  He’s probably just traveling it, too,” Hunk reasoned.

Pidge responded with silence for a moment.  “Keith, slow down.”

“What?”

“I want to see if he’ll pass us.  Slow down.”

Keith was startled, but he obeyed anyways.  He slowed steadily from 75 to 60.  The car slowed with them.  He didn’t make a move to pass.

“Uh, guys, what are you thinking?” Lance asked apprehensively as he, too, stared out the back window.

“Maybe he’s just not that impatient,” Hunk offered with a thin coating of optimism.

Keith slowed down to 50.  The guy still didn’t move.  “He’s…not moving.”

As if a firecracker, Lance’s eyes went wide.  “Wait a second!  You don’t think he’s _following_ us!?”

“We don’t know that,” Keith snapped back tersely.  Yes, it might be true, but on a highway, they did not have a lot of reasons to believe it.  They did, however, have a reason to be jumpy.  He’ll stop next town to figure this out if he needed too.  Maybe they could drive in circles a little to throw off the trail.  They were almost at Lima.

Moments went by and nothing happened.  Then minutes went by.  Slowly, Keith inched his speed back up.  Conversation stumbled to a crawl, and everyone just seemed to be…looking.  Still, they kept going.  They had no real reason to suspect anything.  But there were also few reasons not to.  More minutes passed

“Hey, guys?” Lance broke the silence as he peered into the distance.  “See that…GUYS!”

All eyes, including Keith’s, snapped backwards at the sound of a roar.  It was another car, an SUV again, zooming across none other than the grass, making a beeline for the road, then swerving onto it, right in between them and the other car.

Keith sped up.  He wasn’t kidding this time.  In five seconds he was pushing 85.

“What the heck!?” Lance startled with his eyes wide on them.  “What are they trying…”

“Alright, just stay calm; everyone stay calm…” Hunk entreated.

“The heck with calm!” Pidge shouted instead.

_GROOOMM…_

Keith’s eyes shot open as he slammed on the brakes.  The car skidded, turning of its own accord.  Another car was there.  It just emerged from the grass, in _front_ of them.  Heading straight for them.  In the wrong direction.

Yelps and maybe screams accompanied him as Keith hard turned right.  He accelerated forward, across the other lane, skimming across the ditch.  Tires hit dirt.  He floored it, eyes set ahead with a blast of focus, tearing through the dirt and grass and kicking up a trail of dust in its wake.  This station wagon was going off road.

“KEITH!  Where are you going!?” Lance yelped demandingly.

“Hold on!” Keith ordered in reply.  He looked in the rearview.  As expected, they were following him.  All three of them.  SUVs.  Plowing through the dirt like it was nothing.  He accelerated as fast as this thing would go.  90…100…

“Oh no!  This is bad!  This is _really_ bad! Guys, I think I believe they’re following us now!”

“YOU THINK!?” Lance screeched back at Hunk.

“Would you sto—”

_PA-SCHOOM!_

A gunshot whizzed past them, and the car immediately erupted in cries and gasps.

“Damn it!”  Pidge cursed loudly.  “What are they going at!?”

“They want us to stop,” Keith replied seriously, his hands gripping the wheels so hard it felt they might break.  He should’ve known.  He should’ve known this could happen.  If they could find Shiro and Allura, who’s to say they too weren’t being watched, all this time?  “Maybe we can lose them.”

“HOW!?” Lance waved his hands dramatically.  “It’s a flat field!  Nothing’s here!”

“Well do YOU have a plan!?”

“You’re driving!”

“Well, you’re the oldest, so you are in charge,” Hunk added unhelpfully.  Keith did not have time for this.

_PEW!  PEW!_

Two more gunshots whizzed past the car.  Then one hit.

_BOOM!_

The station wagon jolted forward as a bullet embedded itself into what had to have been the metal of their backside.  This really wasn’t good.  They could shoot the tires like this.

“This is not good!” Hunk confirmed, alternating between peering back at their pursuers and refusing to look behind him at all.  “We’ve been found out!  The tables have turned!  The chaser has become the chased!  The hunter has become the hunted!”

“Shut up!  We need an actual plan!” Pidge barked.

_BANG!  SCHEEEEECK!_

Glass shattered, and everyone instinctively ducked their heads like no tomorrow.  But the bullet had embedded itself in the ceiling.  At least, it was a good thing the trunk on this car was incredibly long, because the shattered remains of their back window lay in pieces.

“Oh, it hit!”

“What do we do—”

“Lance! Hunk!”  Keith yelled.  One plan.  He did, maybe, have one plan.  “Can either of you climb back there to open the trunk?  We need to dump the luggage!”

“ARE YOU CRAZY!?”

“Ya’ chicken!  _I’ll_ go back there and do it!” Pidge growled, and Lance’s expression changed from shock to something like determined fury.

“No!  I have this!” Lance vaulted his way over the seat and into the back.

“This is _way_ too dangerous!” Hunk protested as he followed him over.  Lance darted forward to open the trunk door, but not wide open, and the two of them immediately started pushing things off.  Suitcases, boxes, bags.  The heavy stuff.  And they ducked behind the suitcases that were left.

The cars pursuing them swerved to miss the debris.  It bought them a few precious seconds.

“What now!?” Hunk squealed.  In response, more gunshots fired.  They didn’t hit.  A couple shot into the ground.  They had to be going for the wheels.

Keith had nothing.  “We keep running!”

“No!” Lance’s voice came forth with such determination, it actually caught everyone’s attention.  “Guys, we’re in the middle of nowhere!  No one can see us!  We can use our quintessence powers right now!  We don’t have to just run!” he entreated strongly, leaving them almost stunned.  “So Hunk, use your quintessence powers right now!”

“What!? Me? What about you?”

“I don’t have any water, dude!  All we have is dirt!”

“But can’t you make it out of the water in the air?”

“IT’S DRY!  And that’s hard!”

“But I can’t do that!  We’re going over a hundred miles per hour!  I’ve never tried it moving before!”

“Well, do it now!”

“AHHHHHHH!!!!”

Hunk screamed for drama and suddenly moved out from his cover, hands moving, eyes focusing.  He yelled all the while he came into sync and…

The ground careened up so violently, it made their own car jolt forward with the force.  Keith looked back in the rearview.  A wall of hardened dirt stood in between them and the SUV trio.   The wall was jagged, crumbling in places, and it had plenty of holes, but it was a wall.  The pursuers had to accelerate around it to get to them.

“Hunk!  That’s it!” Pidge looked excited and almost surprised.

“Ya-HA!” Lance cheered.

They weren’t done yet, though.  Now one was on his left side, two on his right, converging.  Hunk kept going with uncharacteristic reckless abandon, moving earth, creating cracks and fissures, and raising up bumps and little walls.  Anything to slow them down.

Then their own car plopped downwards.  The rear right side fell hard and jreked them all back, and for a few seconds, the car wasn’t moving.  Keith accelerated to get out of the hole.

“What was that!?” Lance yelped.

“Sorry!” Hunk shouted in apology.  “That was me.  I can’t…I can’t use it that well, I’m sorry!”

“That’s fine! Just keep going!” Lance shouted encouragement in reply.

Meanwhile, Keith glanced with concern to his passenger seat.  “Pidge…are you okay?” Her eyes were closed, her head held down.

“Shut up!  I’m focusing!” she barked, and Keith realized.  Hunk wasn’t the only one possessing an element in this place.  “Dang, this is hard…”

Out of the corner of his eye, Keith saw grass rise.  The tuft was taken in just as one of the SUVs started gaining on his right flank.  And somehow, miraculously, it made the mistake of driving straight over the patch.

“NOW!”

Pidge screamed so loud, it made even Keith’s heart jump against his ribs.  Even against his train of focus, his head snapped back to see.  It was stopped.  The car had stopped as if some unseen force held it fixed it place.  Then its windows broke.  Grass, larger and thicker than any grass should be, snaked its way over the frame, up the sides…

“HUUHHH!” Pidge gasped loudly as her head slammed back against her knees.  “I’m…out of range…” she panted hard.

“Pidge!  Dude!  That was awesome!” Lance cheered as if he were spectating a video game.

And for a moment, it was almost like that.  One car down.  At least, they didn’t see it anymore.  If one was down, could they actually take out the two?  But the ground was starting to change.  Keith ran across some ridges—natural ones.  He spotted a cliff face up ahead, as well as a ledge.  He turned to the right.  They might be heading for a canyon; he needed to drive the way down, or around.

_BANG!  POOM!_

Under his feet, Keith could feel the car drop.  Beneath his steering wheel, the drive turned lopsided, and despite the gas, they slowed.  80…70…60…the speedometer kept drifting.  Rear right.  It was the rear right.  Their guns hit it, and just like that, it was flat.  And despite the best efforts of the other three, it was determined to drag them down.

“Oh, no!  They shot the tire!”

“Really good at stating the obvious, aren’t ya, Hunk!?” Pidge yelled.  “We have to…KEITH, WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?”

He hard turned left.  He saw the ledge up ahead, and immediately his locked in.  He accelerated forward. 

“YEAH KEITH WHAT—”

“Hunk!  I’m counting on you for this!” Keith didn’t have time to argue.  “When we go over, move ground from the cliff to catch, then lower us down as fast as you can!”

“WHAT!?” Hunk yelped.  “Keith, I can’t do that!  What if…”

“Then try!” He zoomed forward anyways, because, at this point, they didn’t have time for options.  These guys wanted to capture them.  In the manner of moments, they could have all of them, and it would be their past nightmare all over again.  The lab.  The experiments.  The torture.  Maybe they would be used.  Maybe they would be killed.  But not today.  Not Pidge.  Not Lance.  Not Hunk.  Not himself.  Three good tires and one bad one zoomed from dirt into the air, and he careened over the edge of the cliff and into the canyon.

“AAAHHHHH!!!”

The screams went in chorus.  They were air-born for one second, two, three…

The tires hit dirt again, but Keith didn’t drive on them.  He saw a terrified-looking Hunk in the back closing his eyes but seeming focused anyways.  The earth caught their fall, and they descended fast to the ground.  The trunk door, still not shut, flew open wide and stuff came flying out with it.

_CRAASSHH!_

The wheels slammed against the canyon floor, bounced, and slammed again.  Their bodies slammed with it.  But they were here.  They were alive.  Still Keith wasn’t taking a chance on this car running again.  He could already see the pursuers gaining on them in his mind and readying their guns.  Maybe they wouldn’t be so interested in taking them in one piece now.

“Everyone!  Out of the car!” he barked and his younger adopted siblings obeyed.  They tore out of that thing in seconds.  “Behind the rubble!”

They ran and ducked behind the upturned chunks of earth that Hunk had created.  And in one, maybe reckless move, his hands breathed fire.  He threw a ball of flame straight to the car, aiming for the gas tank.  And then he ducked for cover with the rest of them.

One second, two seconds…

_BOOOMM!_

Flames from the car shot up to the sky as the station wagon exploded with no holds barred.  After the big moment, it kept burning.  It roared and fizzled for all to see, a sure sign that this 1986 Ford would never move in this world again. 

Hopefully, _they_ saw it, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whooo, yes! I finally posted on this thing! Sorry it's been so long since the last chapter; last semester was pretty crazy, and I feel like I haven't actually caught up until now. Anyhow, hopefully this did not disappoint! The kids are on a road trip, but not anymore. They wrecked the car just a little. This was rather fun to write being their first glimpse of action, when they really don't know what they're doing. Because, of course, they couldn't just get there with nothing happening. That would be too easy.
> 
> Also threw in references to canon because I could, obviously. Hunk has his mandatory "hunters become the hunted" spill (yes, I couldn't resist), and Keith drives them all off the side of a cliff. They're looking like a great team already! 
> 
> By the way, the route from Voltage, Oregon to Lima, Idaho is 454 miles by car. They would have been caught at roughly four hundred, hence the chapter title, in case anyone cared. I Google mapped this whole ordeal. You're welcome. (I did play creative liberties with the whole canyon thing, though. They mostly have rivers at the bottom of those, it seems)


End file.
